Athletics: IAAF denies covering up Americans' test failures

There was no cover-up over positive doping tests involving Carl Lewis and other United States athletes in 1988, the sport's governing body insisted yesterday. And it denied that there had been any infringement of the doping regulations.

Following last month's claim that a number of American athletes, including Lewis, had been allowed to compete at the 1988 Olympics despite testing positive for banned stimulants at the trials, the International Association of Athletics Federations has established that it was made aware of the findings at the time and had accepted that they were not of sufficient seriousness to constitute an offence.

Details released by Wade Exum, the United States Olympic Committee's director of drug control from 1991 to 2000, implied that details of the positive findings had not been passed on to the international body. But an IAAF statement refutes that, maintaining that it had been informed of eight positive tests for ephedrine and ephedrine-related compounds at the 1988 US trials.

"The IAAF Medical Committee felt satisfied ... on the basis of the information received that the cases had been properly concluded by the USOC as 'negative cases' in accordance with rules and regulations in place at the time and no further action was taken," the IAAF said.

An IAAF spokesman said yesterday: "Not only did the IAAF know about these findings, but it accepted them. The rules were never broken. It was accepted that the levels found were less than 10 parts per million, which were not high enough to be performance enhancing. Two years later the rules changed so that findings of under 10 per million did not even have to be notified."

The allegations against Lewis and other 1988 Olympic champions, such as Andre Phillips and Joe DeLoach, triggered controversy within athletics. The IAAF said it was concerned that the continuing controversy was "tarnishing the image of the sport unnecessarily" and it "wished to make its position clear" after reviewing its documents.

* Injury will prevent the former European indoor 3,000 metres champion, Mark Carroll, from competing in this summer's World Championships in Paris. The Irishman picked up a ligament injury while training in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He initially had an MRI scan and it showed negative. However, further consultation revealed a ligament had torn away from the bone. Carroll has abandoned all plans to compete during the summer.