Russia tops doping in 2014, athletics has most cases

MONTREAL (AP) - Russia was responsible for more doping violations than any other country in 2014, while track and field was the sport with the worst doping record over the year, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Russian athletes topped the country list with a total of 148 violations, followed by Italy with 123 and India with 96, WADA said Wednesday in a report on doping cases around the world.

Belgium and France completed the top five with 91 violations each.

The findings for Russia come as the country remains banned from international track and field, including the Olympics, after its athletics federation was suspended by the IAAF in November following allegations of state-sponsored and systematic doping made by a WADA panel.

The Russian anti-doping agency has also been suspended from conducting any testing in the wake of the scandal, with Britain's UKAD now conducting most of the tests in Russia.

Track and field led the number of doping violations by sport with 248, followed by bodybuilding (225) and cycling (168). Weightlifting (143) and powerlifting (116) came next in the list.

WADA said 1,693 violations were recorded in 2014, out of 217,762 test samples sent to its accredited laboratories.

Among the violations, 1,462 were the result of banned substances being detected in blood and urine samples by the athletes.

However, a further 231 violations were the result of an athlete's behavior, rather than a scientific analysis.

"These were determined through evidenced-based intelligence collected; such as evading, refusing or failing to submit a sample; possession and/or trafficking of a prohibited substance; or complicity, amongst other means," WADA Director General David Howman said in a statement.

"This proves the increasing importance of non-analytical approaches to anti-doping, something which is now well emphasized under the revised World Anti-Doping Code."

WADA also noted that the number of recorded cases of doping fell in 2014, compared to the previous year.

In 2013, the number of banned substance violations was 225 cases higher at 1,687, while there were 35 more non-analytical violations over the year at 266.

The report for 2014 covered a total of 109 nationalities in 83 sports.