Russian long jumpers rapid decline after moving drug testing off-shore

JUMPS coach Gary Bourne says Russian long jump results have “fallen through the floor’’ this year since their samples were taken out of the country for anti-doping testing.

Australia's Bronwyn Thompson finished fourth behind three Russians at Athens.

EXPERIENCED Brisbane jumps coach Gary Bourne says Russian long jump results have “fallen through the floor’’ this year since their samples were taken out of the country for anti-doping testing.

While provisionally suspended by the world governing body of athletics since last November, Russian athletes have been able to compete since, usually in their own country, at a time when Russian testing agencies lost their international accreditation.

The leading Russian female long jumper of 2016, Yulia Pidluzhnaya, would rank 31st with her best leap of 6.65m if suspended Russians were included in IAAF rankings.

Last year, she was ranked 12th in the world and No.1 in her country with a 6.87m leap.

Australian Brooke Stratton’s national record of 7.05 in Perth in March places her second in world long-jump standings behind only German Sosthene Moguenara (7.16m).

In the men’s long jump, the Russian Vasily Kopeykin (8.21m) would rank 11th but the IAAF website credits no other Russian man with an 8m jump this year.

Bourne coached Brisbane’s Bronwyn Thompson to fourth in the 2004 Olympic long jump final, denied a medal by three Russian placegetters. Two of those Russian women later tested positive to banned substances.

“Most of the Russians have fallen through the floor since they tightened up on the drug testing – they have dropped off the radar completely,’’ said Bourne, who has two long jumpers, Chelsea Jaensch and Henry Frayne, selected for the Rio Olympics.

“People would, I think, be more forgiving of the Russians, certainly the Russian athletes, if Russia came clean and said, ‘Yes, we were doing this between (these years) and we won’t do it again. Those athletes who won medals in that time were part of the Russian system and they were talking drugs’.

Australia's Bronwyn Thompson finished fourth behind three Russians at Athens.

“They keep lying about things all the way along.

“I’m still disappointed for Bronwyn. We used to say the Russian women in the jumps (in that era) must have come from a different gene pool to the Russian men. The women were world leaders and their men were hopeless.’’

Now, another generation of Australian athletes are preparing for an Olympics at which only individual Russian track and field competitors training outside Russia can seek to demonstrate they are “clean’’ in order to compete at the Rio Games.

Jaensach, ranked 21st in the world this year, jumped 4cm short of a pre-departure standard in Cairns with 6.46m and will hope to improve when she competes there next Sunday.

Frayne’s jump of 7.74m came as he emerged from a hamstring problem and is able to run at about 80 per cent capacity.

Russia’s 2004 Olympic long jump champion Tatyana Lebedeva did not test positive to a banned substance.

Bronze medallist Tatyana Kotova tested positive in 2009 for the banned substance formestane and silver medallist Irina Meleshina tested positive to testosterone in 2012, earning suspension from the 2012 London Olympics.

“Tatyana Kotova tested positive in 2009 when they brought the biological passport in. The sample was from 2005,’’ Bourne said.

“You don’t like to see good people cheated and she (Thompson) is not the only one – what about the throws and distance events?’’

The IAAF ruled on Saturday that Russian athletics had not done enough to demonstrate reform of their anti-doping practices and kept a suspension in place.

Originally published as Russian long jumpers rapid decline after moving drug testing off-shore