BERLIN, (Reuters) – Doping cases in athletics need to be dealt with quicker and cheats punished with tougher sanctions, IAAF vice president Sergey Bubka said yesterday with his sport confronted by allegations of hundreds of suspicious past tests.
“We need to see how to speed up the process between cases and decisions,” he told Reuters in an interview. “That needs to be quicker.
“We need to be looking at what can be improved, tougher sanctions, legal challenges,” added Bubka, who has long favoured tougher sanctions for doping offenders past the current two years with his sport’s credibility hit with every positive test.
“We must look at it from the legal side and see what can be tougher.”
Former Olympic champion pole vaulter Bubka is running for world athletics governing body’s presidency and goes up against Sebastian Coe in next week’s vote in Beijing ahead of the world championships.
Bubka said he had talked with the World Anti-doping Agency about the need to boost cooperation, improve the overall system of testing and processing cases and the need for more funds.
“We will continue to fight, to cooperate with WADA and the International Olympic Committee….to speak openly about the future,” said the Ukrainian.
