Athletics: Jamaicans unfazed by doping absences

The Jamaican athletics team is focusing on the "positive side of life" in the wake of a doping scandal that has rocked track and field, according to 200m medal hopeful Warren Weir.

In the run-up to the World Athletics Championships that begin today, positive tests for banned substances by Weir's teammates Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown and Sherone Simpson, and separately American Tyson Gay, sent shockwaves through the sport.

But Weir insisted the Jamaican camp were coping with their absence, notably of former world record holder Powell, a 4x100m relay gold medallist at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and one of the four fastest men over 100m in history.

"We're a pretty young team and we're coping," said Weir, who claimed a shock 200m bronze at the London Olympics behind winner Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake in a Jamaican 1-2-3.

"We're just glad to have a young team that's moving up through the ranks."

Weir denied that the team felt overawed by increased expectations on the track following the three recent positive tests.

"There's no pressure at all. We like to look at the positive side of life, we don't let negative news get the best of us. We try to stay on the clear path and keep a steady head," the 23-year-old said.

Weir trains under Glen Mills alongside Bolt and Blake, who has pulled out of the worlds with injury, and he admitted that the former's presence was welcome in the sometime pressure-cooker environment of professional sprinting.

"Bolt takes the pressure off me by being there," he said. "I can just go out there and focus on myself, running my race to my expectations."

- AAP