European samples to be stored for a decade

Blood and urine samples from athletes who set European records will be stored for a minimum of 10 years in the sport's latest attempt to stamp out drug cheats, the head of European athletics said. "We don't want cheats to ever feel that they got away with something and that they are safe because they were not caught immediately," Norwegian Svein Arne Hansen said. Hansen, who last week set up a task force to examine the credibility of records set in European athletics, said high on his list of priorities now was "cleaning up the mess" and preventing "these types of problems" in the future. Russian athletes are banned from competing because of state-sponsored doping. The International Olympic Committee stores samples it takes during Games for 10 years, but Europe's governing body had not operated such a policy. Last week, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt learnt that he would lose one of his nine gold medals because relay team-mate Nesta Carter tested positive for a banned substance. Situation hurts Hansen told delegates at a forum staged by the Sport Integrity Global Alliance in London that the cases of doping in his sport in recent years had wounded him personally. "I sometimes find...

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