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.

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.

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".

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.