World Olympians Association (WOA) has reaffirmed its position on the protection of clean athletes worldwide, following recommendations made by European Athletics that World and European athletic records prior to 2005 may be revoked.
WOA President Joël Bouzou, said:
"WOA is committed to ensuring that all athletes are treated as innocent until proven otherwise. As a result, we must question the recommendations made by European Athletics to reset any World or European record that was held by an athlete who has not met their proposed criteria.
"The criteria recommended by European Athletics have a very wide reach, and seem likely to affect many clean athletes, inevitably leading to innocent record holders being stripped of their achievements.
"WOA affirms that strong punishment must be enacted on anyone engaged in doping activities, and is universally committed to stamping doping out of sport, but is also driven to protect clean athletes.
"WOA feels that these recommendations are unfair to clean athletes and do nothing to strengthen the fight against doping."
WOA has proposed a three point plan in the fight against cheating in sport through doping: an anti-doping system totally independent of federations, governments and event organisers; increased funding for anti-doping to stay ahead of the cheats and a permanent mechanism to ensure clean athletes can compete even if their sport, government or NOC is sanctioned.
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