Age cheating as serious as doping, says IAAF

Age cheating will be treated with the same seriousness as doping, the head of the world athletics governing body said.

"We shall treat the matter with the same seriousness as doping," Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) told reporters in Mauritius at the 15th African championships last week.

He was referring to recent cases of cheating by two Kenyans, Thomas Longorisiwa and Emmanuel Chamer, who obtained passports bearing fake ages with the intention of taking part in the World Junior Championships in Beijing from Aug. 15-20.

Longorisiwa was arrested and charged while Chamer was let off after owning up. Both athletes dropped out of the event.

Two other Kenyan-born athletes now representing Bahrain were also arrested in June and briefly held before being released.

They allegedly changed their ages to participate in last year's World Youth Championships in Morocco and junior races at the 2005 World Cross Country Championships in France.

"This is an eyesore for our sport. We are gathering further information and we shall certainly make a decision to suspend the culprits after exhausting the process," Diack said.

Bekele to attack own 5,000 record

Ethiopia's Olympic and world 10,000 metres champion Kenenisa Bekele plans to attack his own 5,000 world record at the Zurich Golden League meeting on Friday.

Bekele was beaten by Kenyan-born American Bernard Lagat in the British grand prix and by Kenya's Isaac Songok at the Stockholm GP.

"Sometimes one wins, sometimes one loses," Bekele told reporters after winning the 5,000 metres on the first day of the African championships.

"That is normal but I think I ran more races that I should have done in the European circuit. However, that has not stopped my ambition to improve on my world record."