IAAF to return to four-year doping bans from 2015

World athletics' governing body, the IAAF, will adhere to a new WADA code and happily revert to four-year bans for drugs offenders from 2015 as part of its "unwavering commitment against doping".

"The new WADA Code, which will come into force on 1 January 2015, will reflect our firm commitment to have tougher penalties and the IAAF will return to 4 year sanctions for serious doping offences," the IAAF said after its council met ahead of the world championships that start in Moscow on Saturday.

Athletics has recently been rocked by a string of doping cases, ranging from high-profile athletes like Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Veronica Campbell-Brown to tens of Russians and Turks, among others.
 

The current sanction for a first-time doping offender is two years, meaning that the athlete would not miss the four-year Olympic cycle.

The IAAF cut the sanction to two years from four in 2004 in line with the World Anti-Doping Agency's thinking of the time, and has long called for a return to harsher punishement for doping infractions.

"The IAAF has an ethical obligation to the overwhelming majority of athletes and officials who believe in clean sport," it said.

"As a leader in this fight the IAAF has built and delivers a programme that is well resourced, far reaching, sophisticated and increasingly able to detect and remove from the sport those who breach our anti-doping rules."

The IAAF added that it has "historically been the pioneering international sport federation in the field of anti-doping. The IAAF began out of competition testing in 1989 and blood testing in 2001 and almost all of the key procedures in anti-doping currently in use have been originated by our sport".