Lord Sebastian Coe has suggested that independent drug testing should be adopted by the International Association of Athletics Federations in order to "remove the potential for conflict".

Coe, who is campaigning to become the next president of the organisation, believes that an independent system will also speed up the process and take the pressure off individual federations.

"We need to have independent testing," The Guardian quotes Coe as saying. "I was in part the architect of independent, random, wholly out-of-competition testing that is now the template.

"The great advantage of independent testing is that it will remove potential conflicts. It takes the pressure off individual federations.

"To have an independent system that I hope, I think, I know can speed up the process of the period between a positive and a sanction can make life easier for individual federations and can remove the potential for conflict."

The IAAF's independent ethics commission are currently investigating allegations of widespread doping among Russian athletes.