IAAF.org]
Asked by reporters for his suggestions to help rid the sport of doping, he said, “The only things I can think of are to test more, be tougher, and make the bans worse. Instead of having a two-year ban for your first offense, I would say ban for life on your first offense.”
“There’s a lot of clean athletes out there,” he stressed, “and we’re just trying to show that we are clean and competing to the best of our abilities, and because of our training.”
Wariner is among the heavy favorites to win his event at this weekend’s World Athletics Final, the traditional season-capping two-day competition. With his victory at Berlin’s ISTAF meet on Sunday, Wariner ended the six-meet series with a spotless record to claim a $249,999 share of the $1 million Golden League Jackpot. His motivation now is to add to his unbeaten streak of 13 races.
“It’s been a long season with the way the Golden League Jackpot was set up, and that was my main motivation. So my motivation now is to stay undefeated with my last two races.” After Stuttgart, Wariner will cap his season in Shanghai.
Other than that, Wariner said, his goals have remained unchanged.
“Hopefully I can get back under the 44 second barrier like I’ve been saying the past few weeks,” Wariner said. “I was hoping to do it in both Brussels and Berlin, but the main goal is just to stay consistent with my times as I have all season, and to do it one more time here in Stuttgart.”
He’s not expecting an easy time on Saturday, however.
“In Berlin, Lashawn Merritt took it out real hard in the first 300 and Gary Kikaya came on real strong in the last 100 so, anything can happen in a race,” he said. “So I just have to focus on myself, my main competitor is myself. It’s going to be a tough race just like it’s been the last three weeks. Merritt gave me a great race in Zurich, and in Brussels Kikaya and Merritt were there, and I’m expecting the same thing here, that they’ll be trying to go out and get me.”
Of his six victories in the world’s most prestigious one-day competitions, his victory at Zurich’s Weltklasse last month was his most challenging, he said.
“The last three were pretty tough. After London I took about a month to train. Probably Zurich would have been my toughest one, if I had to pick one. Just because it was my first race back after training, and they were out to get me that race.”
Competition begins at 13:30 local time on Saturday with competition in the women’s hammer throw. As of this morning, 41,000 tickets have been sold, and organizers remain hopeful that they will reach their goal of 60,000 total for the two days.
The provisional field in the men’s 400 (still subject to change):
Jeremy Wariner, USA
Gary Kikaya, COD
LaShawn Merritt, USA
Andrew Rock, USA
Michael Blackwood, JAM
Alleyne Francique, GRN
Brandon Simpson, BRN
Marc Racquil, FRA (wild card entry)
Know someone else who's interested in running and triathlon?
Save to del.icio.us
