Moscow: Russian athletes suspected of doping will be barred from competing at the world championships starting in Beijing next week, the All-Russian Athletics Federation said yesterday. "No Russian athlete suspected of taking banned substances will take part in the upcoming world championships," ITAR-TASS news agency quoted the secretary general of All-Russian Athletics Federation, Sergei Butov, as saying.

 

Recent accusations of mass doping worldwide made by German broadcaster ARD and Britain's Sunday Times newspaper have plunged athletics into a new crisis marring the build-up to Beijing. "Our decision is not based on media reports, which allege different things," Butov added. "We ... are basing the decision exclusively on the rules of the IAAF and on nothing else."