WADA backs Paula Radcliffe over doping links

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has come out in support of Paula Radcliffe following claims from the marathon world record holder that she had been linked in blood doping allegations.

Radcliffe, who has recorded three abnormal blood-count readings in her career, was left furious earlier this week as she alleged that a Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing regarding a series of media articles on doping in sport had "effectively implicated" her.

The Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD obtained a leaked International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) database that contained more than 12,000 blood tests from approximately 5,000 athletes from 2001 to 2012.

Their joint investigation claimed to reveal an "extraordinary extent of cheating" within top-level athletics, with Jesse Norman, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, then suggesting at the hearing London Marathon winners or medallists and potentially British athletes were under suspicion of doping.

Norman has since insisted he never meant to implicate Radcliffe while her husband Gary Lough called on WADA to clear the 41-year-old three-time London Marathon winner's name.

And the organisation has responded Lough's pleas, stating that no data from before 2009 - when the athlete biological passport (ABP) was introduced - could be used as evidence of doping.

WADA director general David Howman read: "It is very unfortunate that any athlete should feel implicated and that they have to defend their reputation as a result.

"WADA has a clear and established process set out in the World Anti-Doping Code that protects athletes.

"No information in the leaked database from before 2009 " which was before the Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) was introduced " could ever be considered as doping, legally or otherwise.

"Tarnishing an athlete's name based on values from pre-2009 would be wholly irresponsible. At best, blood values from this time could only be used as indicators of the need for targeted future testing of those athletes that have abnormal or unusual values.

"Even athletes' data from post-2009 " when the ABP had been introduced " is not necessarily indicative of doping. The strength of the ABP is that it monitors selected biological variables over time, via the blood, which indirectly reveals the effects of doping. WADA's rules governing the ABP are designed to ensure a complete and fair review of ABP profiles and require the unanimous opinion of three experts.

"WADA is committed to protecting the confidentiality of athletes; in particular, their private medical information."