Sebastian Coe believes lingering suspicion around a number of world bests makes it worth considering a radical European Athletics proposal to rewrite the record books.
European Athletics announced on Monday that its ruling council had accepted a project team’s recommendations to overhaul the record lists and eliminate any doping doubts surrounding performances.
All pre-2005 records could be rewritten under the new rules, which need to be ratified by the governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
The IAAF Council is scheduled to meet in London on July 31, five days before the start of the World Championships, and the proposal is on the draft agenda.
As several European records are also world records, the working group consulted the IAAF and the world governing body’s president Lord Coe.
While Coe insists there is a long way to go in discussions, the 60-year-old is pleased the issue over dubious records has been brought to the fore.
“It’s important we have this discussion,” said Coe, speaking to BBC London. “I spend a lot of time with athletes and they have all been talking to me for years about some of the records on the books.
“So I welcome the debate, there has to be a debate, and these proposals will come back to the Council and I look forward to, maybe, counter-proposals. I do think we have to start somewhere.”
If the proposals are accepted by the IAAF, a world record would only be recognised if it meets three specific criteria.
It must have been achieved at a competition on a list of approved international events where the highest standards of officiating and technical equipment can be guaranteed.
The athlete must also have been subject to an agreed number of doping control tests in the months leading up to it, and the doping control sample taken after the record must be stored and made available for retesting for 10 years.
The IAAF only started storing samples in 2005, which means records set before then would be “retired” and athletes who hold them would be referred to as “former record-holders”.
The EA plan is for these new rules to be implemented worldwide on January 1, 2018.
Pierce O’Callaghan, the chairman of the working group that came up with the recommendations, told Press Association Sport it was “possible Europe was out of step with global opinion on this” but he doubted it, particularly as Coe was supportive.
The proposals have been met with disgust by some former British athletes, including world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe.
How the IAAF proceeds will depend on the views of athletics chiefs from Africa, Asia, North and Central America, Oceania and South America.
USA Track and Field promised to “vet the matter with American athletes and fellow federations” and said any move to retire records “has the potential to affect records that are clean as well as those that are tainted”.
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