Bolt shocked but against wiping records

Sprint king Usain Bolt says he's shocked but there's no point wiping world records in response to the sport's latest doping scandal.

Six-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt says he's shocked and let down by the scandal-hit IAAF but is against resetting athletics world records.

Thursday's second instalment of a World Anti-Doping Agency report slammed the International Association of Athletics Federations, accusing former head, Lamine Diack, of running a clique that covered up organised doping and blackmailed athletes as officials looked the other way.

The first part of the report by independent investigator Dick Pound, a former head of WADA, in November led to Russia being banned from competition for state-sponsored doping.

Jamaican sprint king Bolt, the biggest name in athletics with a plethora of titles, records and commercial deals, said the IAAF had failed their athletes.

"When I heard it was quite shocking for me because as far as I was concerned I think they were doing a good job to clean up the sport," he said in Kingston after collecting his sixth National Sportsman of the year award.

"You feel let down as an athlete to be wanting to actually help clean up the sport and then something like this to come up.

Diack stepped down last year after 16 years leading the IAAF and was replaced by Briton Sebastian Coe.

The Senegalese is already under investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money laundering linked to the concealment of positive drug tests in concert with Russian officials and the blackmailing of the athletes to allow them to continue to compete.

UK Athletics released "A Manifesto for Clean Athletics" on Monday, calling for world records to be wiped and drug cheats banned for at least eight years.

Bolt, who set the 100 metre and 200m world marks of 9.58 and 19.19 seconds in 2009 and shared in the 4x100m mark of 36.84secs in 2012, was against the proposal.

"As far as I'm concerned it's really pointless," he said.

"What's done is done, you have to just move forward and try to make the upcoming championships and Olympics and the next (world) records as best as we can."


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Source: AAP


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