Drugs in Sport: Germans push to reduce bans

THE GERMAN athletics federation yesterday increased the pressure on the International Amateur Athletic Federation for a reduction in the present minimum ban of four years for serious drug-taking offences.

At the opening day of the IAAF ruling council's three-day meeting in Stuttgart, August Kirsch, the German member, confirmed that his federation would table a proposal to the congress in August calling for a reduction, possibly to two years.

The German federation has been faced with many legal difficulties in enforcing its ban on the sprinter Katrin Krabbe and believes its judgments would not be upheld if athletes resorted to the German civil courts.

'The German federation was always against the four-year ban when it was introduced two years ago in Tokyo,' Kirsch said.

'It was clearly far too harsh and it was wrong the way the British pushed it through.'