Jon Ridgeon: Nations which don't take doping problems seriously should be banned

Jon Ridgeon says whole nations need to be banned from major athletics competitions if it helps to rid the sport of doping.

Britain’s former world athletics silver medallist Ridgeon believes sanctions may need to go much further than they currently do if doping is to be eradicated.

Leaked data suggested around a third of the athletics medals won in endurance events at the Olympics and World Championships between 2001 and 2012 – including 10 at London 2012 – were won by athletes with suspicious blood samples.

The Sunday Times newspaper and Germany's ARD/WDR broadcaster obtained secret IAAF data from a whistleblower that indicated widespread suspected blood doping.

Of the 800 suspicious samples, 415 were from Russian athletes, and 77 were Kenyans.

One of the athletes is alleged to be a top UK athlete – though it is not Mo Farah or Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Lord Coe expects a "robust and detailed response" from the IAAF following the allegations. And Ridgeon believes that the consequences for nations with multiple offenders should be severe.

He told Sky Sports News HQ: "It’s not just about imposing sanctions on athletes when they are caught. There are also, if you look at results here, a number of nations particularly guilty about returning lots of suspicious blood samples. Russia are right at the top of the list.

"There has got to be a case as well if a nation will not really step up and test its athletes… that actually there are sanctions on that nation and you actually remove them from international competition for a certain period of time until they have proven they take it seriously.

There are also, if you look at results here, a number of nations particularly guilty about returning lots of suspicious blood samples.

"For athletics to flourish the athletes and the general public need to believe what they see, and that means it needs to be a clean sport.

"The (allegations) are clearly serious and damaging and depressing. Over the last decade it appears that many leading athletes around the world who have won medals at world and Olympic levels have returned suspicious blood readings. Yet they haven’t been caught and banned from the sport.

"Not all these athletes have potentially cheated. But the law of averages means that a large part of them would have done. It shows the sport that the sport has a major effort to make.

"Athletics has over the years has done a lot of testing – traditional testing which is taking urine samples, both in competition and out of competition. The problem is the cheats keep getting more sophisticated, they keep getting cleverer in the way they try to cheat.

"It appears as though athletics as a sport hasn’t embraced fully – or as much as they could have done – the latest techniques… things like biological passports to see if there has been any changes in things like athletes’ blood profiles. More of that approach has to be taken."