Paula Radcliffe has reacted angrily to the proposal that all world and European records set prior to 2005 will be abolished from the record books.
Euroepan Athletics announced last week that they would consider stripping any world record made before 2005 as no blood and urine samples were available for re-testing at this time.
Radcliffe who broke the world record at the London Marathon in 2003 with a time of 2:15:25 told Sport360: “I think there is a lot of ambiguity in the proposal at the moment, trying to understand is it supposed to be pre-2005 or pre-2009 when the samples were kept for that long, or are there other variables that need to be introduced.
“I understand what they are trying to do, and the premise is good, we need to have credibility in the records. But this idea that you can somehow wipe away everything with the same brush and then say you are not damaging my dignity and reputation and that of other people there, it is wrong.”
The world governing body – the IAAF – only started storing blood and urine samples in 2005, meaning all records set before then are likely to be at risk. This would include Jonathan Edwards’ triple jump world record in 1995 and Hicham El Guerrouj’s epic 1500m time of 3:26:00 in 1998.
Usain Bolt’s 100m and 200m records from 2009, and Wayde van Niekerk’s 400m record at Rio Olympics are likely to remain intact as they were set more recently.
Speaking at Nike’s Breaking 2 event at Monza, the 43-year-old added: “I find it hurtful that this insinuation is almost being made, with the premise with that ‘you are not dubious, but I think you’ll do it for the good of the sport’.”
“I don’t think it is for the good of the sport. I think we need to get investment in the testing, moving things forward. Maybe at some point in the future we can guarantee that every performance is completely clean.”
“For me now, I think it’s one more time that they are asking us clean athletes to pay the price for what cheats have done to the sport.”
“We had to compete against them, we’ve had to lose medals. We need to focus on getting the sport better, protect the clean athletes before we start making PR stunts again that make us suffer at the hands of the cheats.”
The IAAF are set to approve the proposal in July and it is expected to come into effect within the next 12 months.
