The outgoing president of international athletics defended the organisation’s record on drug-testing yesterday and called the latest doping allegations “a joke.”

Lamine Diack, who steps down as IAAF president at the end of August, also questioned whether there would be any redistribution of Olympic medals.

Diack said: “There is a film and a newspaper who are asking questions. We are going to answer them all.

“But it [doesn’t mean] just because someone has a suspicious profile once that he was doped. When people say that there are medals to be redistributed from 2001 to 2012, it’s just a farce.”

Sebastian Coe, who is standing in the election to succeed Diack, has promised to take a hard line on drugs.