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Athletics: Russia says its making anti-doping progress

World athletics championships hosts Russia on Monday rejected claims they are soft on doping, saying the exposure of a spate of high-profile cheats was due to a step forward in testing. A number of Russian athletes, including 2004 Olympic hammer champion Olga Kuzenkova, have been banned in recent months for doping violations, prompting calls in some quarters for Moscow to be stripped of its right to host the championships later this year.

Expect more positive tests, warns Russian athletics chief

By Gennady Fyodorov MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian athletics chief Valentin Balakhnichyov said he expected more doping cases involving Russian athletes to be revealed in the future because the country conducted more drugs tests than any other nation. "Don't be surprised if you hear about a few more suspensions coming our way," the president of the Russian athletics federation (VFLA) told Reuters on Monday following an inspection visit by top officials from the sport's governing body IAAF.

Athletics: Russia says making progress in anti-doping

World athletics championships host Russia on Monday rejected claims that it was soft on doping, saying the exposure of a spate of high-profile cheats was due to a stepping up of testing. A number of Russian athletes, including 2004 Olympic hammer champion Olga Kuzenkova, have been banned in recent months for doping violations, prompting calls in some quarters for Moscow to be stripped of its right to host the championships this year.

Sport: Doping product seizures down in France in 2012

The number of doping products seized by customs officials in France in 2012 were down on the previous year but still topped 300,000, a high-ranking customs official said Saturday. The total number of products seized stood at 320,611 according to Jean-Pierre Garcia, director of the National Directorate of Intelligence and Customs Investigations (DNRED). Garcia was speaking at the annual national conference on the fight and prevention of doping at the House of French Sport in Paris.

RugbyU: Doping in rugby as bad as cycling, says ex-hooker

Former France hooker Laurent Benezech has claimed that people are turning a blind eye to doping in rugby in the same way that was once the norm in cycling. Speaking to Le Monde Benezech said: "The proofs (of doping in rugby) are in front of our eyes but no-one's interested. "Rugby is in exactly the same situation that cycling was before the Festina affair." The Festina affair was an infamous case from 1998 in which the Festina team doctor was stopped by customs officers at the France-Belgium border and found to be carrying various doping products.

Athletics: Olympic champion Kuzenkova banned for doping

Russian hammer thrower Olga Kuzenkova, the 2004 Olympic champion, has been handed a two-year ban for doping, the country's athletics federation said on Tuesday. The federation said that the samples which Kuzenkova gave for testing at the 2005 athletics world championships in Helsinki, Finland, contained banned drugs, without elaborating. Kuzenkova's ban was backdated to March 27, 2013 and all of her results from August 12, 2005 until August 11, 2007 were cancelled.

Puerto trial ends, judgment due in around six weeks

MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish doctor on trial for allegedly running a doping ring in cycling made his final defence on Tuesday before the judge retired to consider her verdict which is due in around six weeks. Eufemiano Fuentes and four other defendants, including his sister Yolanda, have been appearing in a Madrid court since late January, nearly seven years after anabolic steroids, transfusion equipment and blood bags were seized as part of an investigation code-named "Operation Puerto".

RugbyU: Elissalde senior admits to doping

Former France international scrum-half Jean-Pierre Elissalde admitted on Sunday to having doped during his career. The 59-year-old, whose son Jean-Baptiste also played scrum-half for his country and is presently backs coach at Toulouse, said that there had been nothing out of the ordinary in taking doping products at the time. "In the 1970s and 1980s amphetamines were widely taken," Elissalde told French radio station Radio Bleu. "It was taken by cyclists, by footballers, and obviously by rugby players.

Cycling: 'I took drugs like pasta,' admits Schumacher

German rider Stefan Schumacher, who has served a two-year doping ban, has admitted regularly knocking back a cocktail of performance-enhancing drugs, likening it to eating pasta after training. Schumacher was caught in October 2008 when a sample taken during that July's Tour de France was shown to have contained CERA, a variant of the banned blood-booster erythropoeitin (EPO). He also tested positive at the Beijing Olympics. Drug-taking, he said, was par for the course in his then-team.

Darker side to glamour of global sport

By John Mehaffey LONDON (Reuters) - Unprecedented levels of skill, intensity and endurance have transformed global sport into spectacular mass entertainment and handsomely rewarded its leading exponents. Now that the euphoria of last year's acclaimed London Olympics has dissipated, however, a spate of troubling stories in the first quarter of 2013 show an altogether darker and more disturbing side to a glamorous, multi-billion-dollar industry.
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