Two-year suspensions are requested for 26 athletes including European marathon champion Daniele Meucci and Olympic triple jump bronze medallist Fabrizio Donato

The Italian Olympic Committee has called for 26 athletes, including Olympic and world medallists, to each receive two-year doping bans.

The 26 athletes have reportedly been accused of evading doping tests, but according to The Associated Press the athletes “maintain there was an administrative error”.

The 26 athletes are named on the Italian National Olympic Committe (CONI) website as Roberto Bertolini, Migidio Bourifa, Filippo Campioli, Simone Collio, Roberto Donati, Fabrizio Donato, Giovanni Faloci, Matteo Galvan, Giuseppe Gibilisco, Daniele Greco, Andrew Howe, Anna Incerti, Andrea Lalli, Stefano La Rosa, Claudio Licciardello, Daniele Meucci, Christian Obrist, Ruggero Pertile, Jacques Riparelli, Silvia Salis, Fabrizio Schembri, Daniele Secci, Kaddour Slimani, Gianluca Tamberi, Marco Francesco Vistalli and Silvia Weissteiner.

Donato claimed a triple jump bronze medal at the London 2012 Olympics after gold at the European Championships that same year, while Howe is the 2007 world long jump silver medallist and also claimed world indoor bronze in 2006.

Meucci took the European marathon title in 2014 and also has European 10,000m silver and bronze medals to his name.

The 26 athletes are now set to have hearings at CONI’s anti-doping court.

On Thursday (December 3) Reuters quoted the president of Italy’s athletics federation, Alfio Giomi, as saying: “There has been negligence and superficiality on the part of many athletes, absolutely, but that has nothing to do with doping.”

This story was updated on December 3 to include a quote from Alfio Giomi

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