Australia's Olympic 100m hurdles champion Sally Pearson (L), who has been ruled out of world championships in Beijing due to injury, listens to Australia's chef de mission Kitty Chiller as she speaks during a media conference in Sydney Wednesday. — Reuters
SYDNEY — Australian Olympic champion Sally Pearson said Wednesday she fears the Rio Games next year will be tainted by drugs, as she lashed out at doping cheats in the crisis-hit sport. The champion hurdler, who will miss this month's world championships in Beijing after wrist surgery, said she had no doubt some athletes in Rio will be doped. “Unfortunately it's going to be there,” she told reporters at an event in Sydney marking the one-year countdown to the 2016 Olympics. “I don't know how confident I am about how clean it's going to be in Rio. But as long as we can do everything we can to make it the cleanest Olympics we can, then that is a really good start.” Pearson was speaking as the sport faced explosive new allegations of mass doping, with a database belonging to governing body the International Association of Athletics Federations leaked to German and British media. It allegedly shows details of 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 competitors which revealed “extraordinary” levels of doping, although the IAAF dismissed it on Tuesday as “sensationalist and confusing.” Pearson, who injured her left wrist when she tumbled during a Diamond League race in Rome in June, said she was disappointed at the latest scandal. “I don't understand how you can go out into a sporting arena and compete, knowing what you have taken, and be proud of that,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it's good that they are being caught as much as it's disappointing that it still exists.” Australian Olympic Committee chef de mission Kitty Chiller said at the same function that the nation had zero tolerance to drug cheats. “If you dope, to be blunt, if you cheat, and you're a member of the Australian Olympic team, we will name, shame and put you on a plane,” she said. Adams likely to miss out Olympic champion shot-putter Valerie Adams is considering pulling out of her attempt to win a fifth straight world championship title in Beijing later this month. The 2008 and 2012 Olympic champion has been struggling this season after returning from surgery on her on her right elbow and left shoulder and was not keen to compete in China unless she was 100 percent fit. Her manager Nick Cowan told the New Zealand Herald that her trip to Beijing for the Aug. 22-30 championships was “up for review” as the 30-year-old looked forward to her Olympic title defence in Brazil next year. “This year was always a risk but we knew we had to take it to be ready for Rio,” he told the newspaper. “We had to give it a crack to be able to put some sticks in the sand. It's all about Rio for her, and always has been.” Adams, IAAF Athlete of the Year in 2014, lost for the first time in 57 meetings when she finished fifth in Paris last month and effectively gave up the Diamond League title she had owned for four years when she finished fourth in Stockholm last week. “(Stockholm) wasn't her best performance,” Cowan added. “It wasn't in line with how we thought things would track and it probably added a few things up for us, so those discussions are what to do from here — push on or come home.” German Christina Schwanitz, who won her fourth straight Diamond League event in Stockholm, is favorite to take the world crown Adams first won in Osaka in 2007. — Agencies
