by Our Sports Desk

SEBASTIAN COE launched a furious defence of international athletics’s record in dealing with doping yesterday but admitted some countries were causing a problem to the sport.

Coe, who is running for the presidency of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) later this month, said there was widespread anger in the sport at claims by German broadcaster ARD and the Sunday Times that athletics had turned a blind eye to hundreds of suspicious blood tests.

The double Olympic 1500m champion insisted the IAAF had led the way on tackling doping and had accepted the embarrassment of banning some of the top athletes from the sport. A lengthy and detailed response by the IAAF labelled the allegations “sensationalist and confusing.”

The Sunday Times has issued a statement standing by its story and calling the IAAF response “disingenuous.” It said it had gained access to a database containing more than 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 athletes and that more than 800 athletes — and a third of all medallists in endurance events at recent Olympics and World Championships — had suspicious blood test results which were not followed up by the IAAF.

Asked about his statement that the report was a “declaration of war,” Coe said: “I don’t think anybody should underestimate the anger that is felt in our sport. We have led the way on this.

“To suggest that in some way we sit on our hands at best, and at worst are complicit in a cover-up, is not borne out by anything we have done in the last 15 years. As a sport we have led the way on out-of-competition testing, on accredited laboratories, we were the first sport to have arbitration panels.

“Yes, we have countries out there that are causing a problem and an inordinate amount of difficulty across our sport but to say we are not investigating or turning a blind eye to this could not be further from the truth.”