IAAF to Recommend Drug Users Lose Titles

The international governing body for track and field will recommend to its Council and Congress that athletes holding records or titles be stripped of them if they admit under oath to taking banned substances.

Primo Nebiolo, president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, said Saturday that the recommendation would apply to all “world, continental or national records and any title(s).”

Nebiolo refused to comment on the specific question of whether Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson would lose his 100-meter world record set in the last World Championships at Rome in 1987.

Johnson’s drug tests in the World Championships were negative, but he recently admitted under oath that he took steroids for several years. He tested positive at last year’s Olympics and was stripped of his 100-meter gold medal.