Swimming has global doping problem

- From Daily Mail Online

Swimming has global doping problem on same scale as athletics, warn top coaches

• Swimming is just as involved in the doping crisis as athletics, say coaches

• John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association: 'Russia has been a greenhouse for this for many decades'

• Bill Sweetenham: 'It's all leading to Rio being one of the dirtiest Olympics'

Swimming has a global doping crisis on the same scale as athletics, leading coaches have warned.

'People saying this is not just Russia and not just athletics are 100 per cent correct,' John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, told Sportsmail.

The association are concerned about possible corruption in swimming's international governing body and have repeatedly raised their concerns with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

There are fears that the 'state-sponsored' doping in Russian athletics revealed this week may be echoed in swimming.

Russia currently has 27 swimmers serving doping bans and earlier this year came within one anti-doping violation of being temporarily suspended from competition.

There is evidence of young teenagers taking performance-enhancing drugs — with 14-year-old backstroke swimmer Daria Ustinova testing positive in 2012. (Read More)

Read the full story here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-3312672/Swimming-global-doping-problem-scale-athletics-warn-coaches.html