IAAF: Athletics spends more than cycling on anti-doping
Athletics is spending more on anti-doping than the UCI is in cycling, according to the IAAF.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) claims it spends more money than the International Cycling Union (UCI) when it comes to fighting doping.
Speaking to BBC Sport on Thursday, two-time Tour de France champion Chris Froome suggested that athletics could learn from cycling by investing more money to catch drug cheats.
Athletics has been embroiled in a well-publicised scandal after allegations were made by German broadcaster ARD and the Sunday Times of England that doping is widespread in the sport, with both claiming to have obtained a database containing 12,000 blood tests of around 5,000 athletes from 2001 to 2012.
But the IAAF again strongly defended its anti-doping programme in a statement released on Friday.
"In response to a number of media inquiries into comparisons between the annual expenditure of the IAAF and the world governing body of cycling UCI, we would like to underline a number of facts for the record," the statement read.
"The IAAF spent $2,300,000 in 2014 on our anti-doping programme on testing alone. When the cost of administrative support (10 full-time members of staff) and litigation is also added, it brings the overall expenditure up to more than $3,000,000.
"This is, without doubt, the highest proportion of an annual budget of any equivalent sporting federation or organisation.
"The International Federation responsible for world cycling – the UCI – spent approximately 1,100,000 Swiss francs (approximately USD $1,130,000 at current exchange rates) on anti-doping in 2013 via what is known as the 'Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation'. It is our understanding that this contribution has even been reduced since then."
The statement added: "If the intention is to imply that 'cycling' does more and spends more than 'athletics' worldwide (rather than referring to the facts about what the respective federations are doing, and which the IAAF hope we have just done) then we propose that media refer to the WADA annual sport by sport comparison.
"This comparison shows that the sport of Athletics did over 25,000 tests worldwide in 2014 while cycling did 23,000 tests, so logic suggests that athletics spends more than cycling worldwide in the field of testing.
"We regret the attempt by a selected group of media to set athletics against cycling, since the IAAF has the greatest respect for the work being done by the UCI in the field of anti-doping. There is strong collaboration between the two organisations in areas of experience sharing, trend-mapping and general anti-doping intelligence."