World Anti-Doping Agency President Craig Reedie said that "banning nations for persistent doping would damage athletics and is not an option," according to the BBC. There have been calls for the worst-offending countries "to be expelled from competition if they cannot control doping among their athletes." Reedie said such bans would be "blunt-edged" and "damage the innocent as well as the assumed-to-be guilty." He said, "We're not entitled to do it, we don't have these powers." WADA "will begin an independent investigation" after the Sunday Times published data from 12,000 blood tests involving 5,000 athletes, which it says reveals an "extraordinary extent of cheating." Reedie said the re-testing was "very significant" and would allow samples to be re-examined "in the light of better testing techniques." Reedie: "If they are able to detect somebody who cheated all those years ago, the IAAF says it will reallocate medals" (BBC, 8/12). The PA reported one of the experts at the center of allegations that the IAAF "turned a blind eye to potential mass doping" has written an open letter to IAAF VP Sebastian Coe accusing the world governing body of "lacking the drive to clean up the sport." Michael Ashenden "was one of the two anti-doping experts enlisted by the Sunday Times." In an open letter, Ashenden wrote, "Does the IAAF pursue its anti-doping mandate with the same single-minded, all-consuming dedication that athletes adopt in their pursuit of winning? Based on what I saw in the leaked database, my view is 'No'" (PA, 8/12). REUTERS' George Obulutsa wrote Kenya National Olympic Committee President Kipchoge Keino said that the IAAF "should act more quickly on doping cases as the sport's governing body begins disciplinary action against 28 athletes who took part in the 2005 and 2007 world championships." Keino, winner of Olympic Gold in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics, said, "Why should WADA and IAAF sanction athletes for doping issues taken in 2005 and 2007 now? Surely, can't a way be found where decisions are taken immediately after tests are done as was the case with (Canadian) Ben Johnson in 1988 (Olympics)?" (REUTERS, 8/12). In London, Martha Kelner wrote British distance runner Jo Pavey "is set to be retrospectively upgraded" to at least a bronze medal from the Osaka World Championships in '07 with the current silver medalist, Turkey’s Elvan Abeylegesse, among 28 athletes to be charged with doping offenses. The news that she will likely be given a medal from the 2007 World Championships more than eight years after the event "will be bittersweet for Pavey, who has missed out on her moment of glory and untold financial benefits in funding and from would be sponsors" (DAILY MAIL, 8/12).
