Kimmage. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO

PAUL KIMMAGE AND Damien Lawlor joined presenter Adrian Barry on the latest edition of Off The Ball’s review of the Sunday papers earlier today.

The Sunday Times article revealing fresh allegations about doping in athletics, which is based on leaked test data on 12,000 blood tests from 5,000 athletes between 2001 and 2012, dominated the hour-long chat.

Sunday Independent journalist Kimmage expressed his belief that the results were a clear indication that athletics has a serious problem with performance-enhancing drugs.

This is, for me, absolute conclusive evidence that what we’ve been looking at in athletics mirrors what we’ve seen in cycling since 2001, and that is that it is totally discredited and a complete sham,” said Kimmage.

The piece claimed that tests by Olympic gold medallists Mo Farah and Usain Bolt showed no adnormal results, but Kimmage questioned whether it was the experts or the Sunday Times who had come up with that conclusion.

“This sport stinks, he added. “Two of the highest profile athletes are clean in a sport that absolutely stinks. That doesn’t make them good, it makes them absolute supermen. And great if they are, but I want the experts telling me that – not people in the Sunday Times.”

Here’s the full discussion. It’s worth a listen:

Off The Ball / SoundCloud

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