Dubai: One of the greatest athletes of all time, Michael Johnson, has urged the world athletics supremo Sebastian Coe to “lead the way in restoring the credibility of the sport”.
Johnson, who won four Olympic titles and eight world championship gold medals between 1991 and 2000, said the sport faced “a critical moment” after being engulfed by a series of doping scandals.
After a WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) report last month uncovered state-sponsored doping programmes in Russia, other countries have been implicated in wrongdoing.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) suspended three senior officials from Kenya, which is renowned for its distance runners, this week over corruption allegations and “the potential subversion of the anti-doping control process”.
On Wednesday, the Italian Olympic Committee requested two-year doping bans for 26 of its athletes, including Fabrizio Donato, the triple-jump bronze medallist at London 2012.
Speaking ahead of the Emirates Airline Dubai Rugby Sevens on Thursday, Johnson outlined the scale of the challenge facing athletics’ governing body, the IAAF, and its president Coe to address such damaging revelations.
“This is a critical moment for the sport of athletics,” said the former 200-metre and 400-metre runner, at a press conference at the Sofitel Hotel in Downtown Dubai to celebrate rugby sevens’ maiden inclusion in next year’s Olympic Games in Rio.
“It [athletics] has led the way in the last 20 years or so in its zero-tolerance policy towards anti-doping. The issue is, though, when you move from the conversation being less about who may or may not be doping to whether the organisation entrusted with keeping the sport clean and policing the sport, whether or not they are complicit in covering up tests and protecting athletes and there’s corruption and bribery allegations, that’s a whole different ball game.
“Seb has his work cut out to tackle doping issues and will have to lead by example to restore the credibility of athletics.”
On Wednesday, Coe underwent intense questioning from a British parliamentary committee in Britain, which accused him of a “lack of curiosity” and “wilful blindness” as a vice-president for eight years to his predecessor Lamine Diack.
Diack was arrested last month and is under investigation for corruption and bribery allegations, which shocked and angered Coe as he had considered the Senegalese “a spiritual leader”.
Coe also denied that the IAAF was institutionally corrupt, insisting that allegations related to only a “handful” of employees.
Johnson believes there is no time-frame for repairing athletics’ sullied reputation, saying Coe and his fellow chiefs should not focus on doing this by next year’s Olympics.
“The credibility of athletics has to be restored with fans and athletes. That has to be the number one priority,” the 48-year-old Texan added.
Johnson went on to reject a suggestion by his fellow BBC Television pundit, the triple jump world-record holder Jonathan Edwards, that jail sentences should be meted out to drug cheats.
“I love Jonathan and there are lots of things that would be great to be done, but you have to sit down and realise you are dealing with multiples of countries and different laws of countries.
“You have to do your research and look at whether that’s feasible, but you need to find real solutions and to increase the budget for which you have to fight doping, so it doesn’t happen to begin with.”
Is zero-doping achievable?
“I don’t think that’s the goal. I don’t think anyone in the world thinks we’re going to get down to zero-doping. Doping is cheating, right?
“Are we ever going to get to a point where no one cheats on anything? I think that’s unrealistic.
“But we do a pretty good job around the world of policing criminal activity and minimalising it.”
