Paula Radcliffe wishes Gatlin and Tyson Gay were banned forever

Paula Radcliffe says the sight of athletes such as Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin competing sends out the wrong message.

The issue of how to punish drug cheats is in the spotlight again with Gay and Gatlin racing against each other over 200metres at the Monaco Diamond League on Friday.

Gatlin, the 2004 Olympic 100m champion, has twice served drug bans, his latest finishing in 2010.

Gay, the 100m and 200m champion at the 2007 World Championships, returned from a one-year suspension at the start of the month when he raced against Gatlin in Lausanne.

However, Radcliffe has reiterated her call for athletes caught doping to be given the ultimate career sanction.

“One of the things people have been campaigning so hard for are four-year bans and for that to be made a mockery of is just wrong,” she said. “I’d personally rather see lifetime bans. We need to do more to ensure that clean athletes are protected.

“Athletics is an amazing sport and we want more and more people to take part in it. But what message does this send?

“We want everyone to compete on a level playing field and want to make sure that people don’t have to make the wrong choice.”

Radcliffe has been a fervent anti?doping campaigner throughout her career and the 2005 world marathon champion wants other athletes to take a similar stance.

But she admitted: “It’s difficult. What do you do? Athletes can refuse to race in events where cheats are in the field but then that’s their livelihood. It’s a difficult situation to be put in.

“They could stand up and be more outspoken. That’s something that I made a decision to do from early on and I’ve stood by my convictions. It’s difficult to do something like that, though, when you’re competing as a full?time athlete.”

Radcliffe, 40, has ambitions of her own to return to competing after a long-standing foot injury. For an athlete who has graced athletics’ biggest stages, her return on September 21 at the Worcester City Run is a low?key one.

Her injured foot has held up to 100 miles a week in training to enable her to enter the race and more ambitiously target a final career marathon in London next April. Because of her past problems, she is still unsure whether she will make it that far.

 “I think it’s realistic to go for the marathon as I’m improving all the time,” said Radcliffe.