Allegations 5,000 athletes have suspicious blood tests 'shocking'

Martyn Rooney says the Sunday Times’ allegation that 5,000 athletes at the world's biggest events have suspicious blood tests is “shocking”.

The 400m European Champion said claims a third of all medals in endurance events at Olympics and World Championships between 2001 and 2012 were won by athletes who recorded suspicious tests surprised him.

“That is a huge amount of athletes competing on the world stage, said Rooney. “As an athletics fan you don’t want to hear those things. You don’t get much coverage in the media anyway so when it’s all negative, negative, negative I don’t think it helps”.

“These figures can be slightly misleading. An athlete could have a cold and that could change a lot of things. It’s very unfair to say every suspicious test means an athlete is doping,“ he added.

This clip is originally from 5 live Daily Monday 3 August 2015.