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 The IAAF said the reports by Britain's Sunday Times newspaper and
Germany's ARD/WDR broadcaster, which implied cheating was rampant in
athletics, were based on "guesswork" and not facts.
"The IAAF takes the allegations published by The Sunday Times and
ARD very seriously and has investigated them thoroughly," the IAAF
said in a nine-page statement.
"The published allegations were sensationalist and confusing: the
results referred to were not positive tests. In fact ARD and The
Sunday Times both admit that their evaluation of the data did not
prove doping."
ARD/WDR were immediately not immediately available to comment, but
The Sunday Times said in a statement: "The Sunday Times based this
story of immense public interest on an impeccable source, thoroughly
researched, precisely conveyed and responsibly communicated. We did
not draw any sweeping conclusions going beyond the evidence we
obtained."
The sport of track and field has been plagued by spectacular doping
cases over the past three decades, involving some of the biggest
stars in the sport, including Ben Johnson and Marion Jones who were
both stripped of Olympic golds.
 The two news organisations did not claim to have unearthed proof of
doping. But they said they had obtained the secret test data from
the vaults of the IAAF, supplied by a whistleblower disgusted by the
extent of doping.
This had indicated suspected widespread blood doping in athletics
between 2001 and 2012, raising new questions about the sport just
weeks before the Aug. 22-30 world championships in Beijing.
The IAAF statement included a background summary on the complex
process of how blood testing is conducted, and criticised the two
Australian scientists who analysed the data and concluded it
revealed an "extraordinary extent of cheating".
"The experts have never worked for the IAAF and are therefore in no
position to make any comment regarding what the IAAF has done or not
done in the development and implementation of its blood and urine
target testing program," the IAAF said.
"To do so is simply guesswork on their part. The IAAF categorically
refutes all allegations made by ARD and The Sunday Times and,
specifically, that it failed in its duty to pursue an effective
blood testing programme at all times."
The Sunday Times and ARD said they were given access to the doping
results of over 12,000 tests from more than 5,000 athletes taken
between 2001 and 2012.
The two scientists concluded that more than 800 athletes had
recorded one or more "abnormal" results, defined as a result that
had less than one chance in 100 of being natural.
They said the athletes, mostly endurance runners, accounted for 146
medals at the Olympics and world championships, including 55 golds.
Russia accounted for the most, with 415 abnormal tests, followed
distantly by Ukraine, Morocco, Spain, Kenya, Turkey and others,
according to the reports.
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Vladimir Kazarin, the coach of two Russian athletes alleged to have
submitted suspicious blood samples, said the accusations were
unfounded. "If you have official positive doping tests, show us. If
not, goodbye," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Kazarin, who has coached the Russian women's athletics team since
2002, was the subject of an earlier ARD documentary on doping last
year. He also dismissed the latest programme. "This second film is
unimaginable nonsense," he said. "It is simply ridiculous."
Russia's anti-doping body promised to investigate the allegations,
saying it would report back to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA),
but nevertheless said the charges were either untrue or reflected
the programme makers' "incompetence".
ZERO TOLERANCE
WADA, a separate body set up in 1999 to coordinate doping
investigations across global sport, said it was "very disturbed".
The president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach,
said the IOC would act with "zero tolerance" if there was any truth
to the reports but stressed "at this time we've nothing more than
allegations and we have to respect the presumption of innocence."
In its detailed response, the IAAF rejected the claim that the
results were secret, saying they had been published by WADA four
years ago. However, it also said it condemned the publication of
what it said was private and confidential data obtained without its
consent.
The athletics body addressed some of the specific accusations and
said some athletes had later been found guilty and suspended because
of investigations it had followed through on.
However, it said a large proportion of these blood samples were
collected before the implementation of the Athlete Biological
Passport (ABP) so could not be used as proof of cheating.
"While the anti-doping community as a whole has acknowledged that
the tests currently available will not catch all cheats, the IAAF
strongly refutes any notion that it has not used every possible tool
to target suspected dopers."
(Writing by Julian Linden in Singapore, additional reporting by
Dmitriy Rogovitskiy and Jack Stubbs; Editing by Angus MacSwan,
Pritha Sarkar and David Stamp)
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