IAAF maintains tough stance

International athletics officials are sticking to their tough approach to drug cases involving nandrolone despite what one top official called a "British epidemic" of cases involving the controversial substance.

Leading British athletes yesterday came to the defence of sprinter Mark Richardson, the latest athlete to test positive for the banned steroid. Richardson, the last man to beat Michael Johnson over 400 metres, denies taking illegal drugs.

But International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) general secretary Istvan Gyulai said that, according to the governing body's rules, athletes were responsible for a banned substance found in their body and it was irrelevant how it got there.

"It is not foreseen to take any more lenient stance on that," Gyulai said. "This is rather tough, but experts say this is the only way.

"Otherwise if you start to accept explanations - knowingly, not knowingly, given by jealous and dependent partners and lovers - then this is the end of the anti-doping fight."

Athletes caught with steroids such as nandrolone in their bodies face a mandatory ban of two years.

British athletics has been hit by an array of nandrolone cases. Dietary supplements are being widely blamed by aggrieved athletes. Richardson, an Olympic silver medallist, says he regularly took supplements.

Last November, the IAAF referred the cases of Britons Linford Christie, Doug Walker and Gary Cadogan, to its arbitration panel.

Each had been cleared by the British governing body UK Athletics after testing positive for nandrolone. Walker and Cadogan said they had taken the same supplement as Richardson.

Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey and Dieter Baumann, have also tested positive for nandrolone over the past year.

The sports supplement company at the centre of the controversy denied its products could convert to nandrolone.

Maximuscle managing director Zef Eisenberg said athletes like Richardson should keep their supplements locked up to stop any chance of them being spiked.

Gyulai added that drugs were on the top of the agenda of a meeting of the IAAF council this weekend. Although he did not expect the Richardson case to be discussed, Britain's problems would be looked at.