London Olympics chief Sebastian Coe said it would be “delusional” to think the 2012 Games in the British capital may have been the dirtiest in history in the wake of more positive drugs tests.
A total of 23 positive results came from 265 retested samples, the International Olympic Committee said, on top of over 30 previous failed tests from competitors who had been caught either during the Games or since.
The high percentage of apparent doping offences sparked suggestions on Friday that London was rife with cheating, but Coe denies that is the case. Coe, now the president of world athletics’ governing body the IAAF, served as the London 2012 organising committee chairman.
The former middle-distance track star claims in the Sunday Telegraph that at the time of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where he competed and won 1500 metres gold, technology was “prehistoric” and says many athletes would pick and base their schedules on the athletics circuit “in large part on the avoidance of testing”.