23 January,2016 02:50 PM IST | | AFP
Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill admits she'll have doubts over Russian athletes if they are allowed to take part in the Rio Games later this year
London: Olympic heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill admits she'll have doubts over Russian athletes if they are allowed to take part in the Rio Games later this year.
Jessica Ennis-Hill. Pic/AFP
Russia is currently banned from international competition after a World Anti-Doping Agency report revealed "state-sponsored" doping in the country. It remains to be seen if the IAAF suspension will be lifted in time for Russia to participate in the Rio Games this August.
However, British star Ennis-Hill felt the Russians would compete under a cloud of suspicion. "I hope if it does get to that stage where there are Russian athletes competing in Rio in the Olympics, really drastic measures have been put in place to make sure that nothing like this happens again. I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't look at Russian athletes and think, 'Is everything 100 per cent OK?' because it's natural for any athlete to feel like that after these different stories and situations have arisen," Ennis-Hill told BBC.
Ennis-Hill, who won heptathlon gold in the 2012 Games in London, was beaten to gold at the World Championships in 2011 in Daegu by Tatyana Chernova, who was later banned for consuming an anabolic steroid.
