LAUSANNE: The International Association of Athletics Federations wants to use blood testing as a way of disqualifying suspect athletes before they even start, an IAAF official said on Saturday.

The concept will be discussed next March at the IAAF Council meeting in Kenya with a view to implementing it before next summer's World Championships next summer in Osaka, Japan.

It involves an athlete being given a blood test before the competition and then the results compared with a previous test. Only 24 hours would be needed to obtain a result compared to the more lengthy process involved with urine samples.

If the results show up any abnormal changes from one test to another then the athlete could be told that he or she will not be able to compete, in similar fashion to cycling's rules on high hematocrit levels which attempt to detect blood doping.

"This is one of our biggest plans. The proposals have been discussed internally with the aim of introducing them before the World Championships in Osaka," said Juan Manuel Alonso, the chairman of the IAAF Medical and Anti-doping Commission.

"The important thing is to make the testing rigorous enough so that it cannot be challenged in court," added Alonso.

Alonso was speaking on the first of the three-day IAAF World Anti-Doping Symposium.

The IAAF already have a considerable databank of elite athletes' blood, having taken 400 samples at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki and another 100 at the 2006 African Championships in Mauritius last month.

Source: China Daily