IAAF to expose three more drug cheats?

But in a barely coded message to the likes of Christie, Ottey and Sotomayor, the ageing Italian overlord of world athletics did issue a warning that all drug cheats would face punishment — however big a star they might be.

Prof Arne Ljungqvist, a senior IAAF vice-president from Sweden, and a biochemist by profession, was wheeled into the president’s pre-championships press conference to field all questions relating to doping.

Ljungqvist denied there were any more positive drug case spending, though other senior sources within IAAF contradicted this, claiming the talk behind closed doors in IAAF’s secret session is that as many as three more athletes had failed drugs tests.

In his address to IAAF Congress, Nebiolo spoke about the continuing modernisation and professionalisation of athletics, “without abandoning our traditional ethical principles”.

“We have battled against doping and will continue to do so with intransigence and severity,” Nebiolo said in his address to the Congress, a meeting of representatives from the federation’s 210 member nations, gathered here ahead of the championships.

“Doping is a dangerous degeneracy, whose damage is spiritual as well as chemical. Nobody can give us lessons on this subject. We will continue this battle, hopefully in agreement with the rest of the sports world, for our principles and our right to govern our sport. We have the courage of our convictions in the anti-doping war, whoever is the subject,” he said.

The Congress decided to throw out an American proposal to change the doping rules by eliminating the preliminary suspension of athletes pending a disciplinary hearing.

Instead, against strong opposition from some countries, led by the United States and Britain, IAAF has opted to announce the names of all athletes who test positive immediately after the laboratory has confirmed its findings.

“In my experience, it is impossible to keep a doping case confidential for more than a few days,” Ljungqvist said. “We argued, successfully, that confidentiality of an accused athlete cannot be maintained — such a system of confidentiality reduces our credibility because when the news leaks out, we are unable to comment on the case, we are almost forced to tell lies.

“So we have changed the rules in the interest of openness, and so that the correct information gets out.”

But a German proposal to start all world records afresh with the new millennium failed to win acceptance.