LONDON (Reuters): FORMER world 200 metres champion Merlene Ottey has alleged she was asked by athletics' world governing body to withdraw from last year's world championships to avoid a drugs scandal.

The 39-year-old Jamaican is currently embroiled in a fight with the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) after testing positive for the banned steroid nandrolone at a meeting in the Swiss city of Lucerne last July.

Ottey, who was cleared of any wrongdoing by her national federation in November, was quoted in the Sunday Telegraph as saying that before the findings of the drugs test had been announced her agent Daniel Zimmermann received phone calls from two senior IAAF officials asking her to say she was withdrawing from the world championships because of injury.

"I said I can't do that," Ottey told the paper. "I think only a guilty person would do. I hadn't done anything wrong. I was in very good shape and ready to run."

The announcement of the failed test was made just three days before the start of the world championships in Seville and Ottey was forced to withdraw from the event after saying the positive test was a mistake.

Zimmermann was quoted as saying: "It was clear that they (the IAAF) didn't want a big scandal upsetting the start of the championships. The two of them insisted that this would be the best solution."

But an IAAF spokesman told the Sunday Telegraph he was unaware of any such conversation.

Ottey is determined to compete in this year's Sydney Olympics before she retires but the IAAF is likely to ask its arbitration panel to adjudicate on her positive test.

"We are not afraid of facing arbitration," Zimmermann said. "But if we have an arbitration court nominated by people who have already made up their mind you feel a little uncomfortable. Usually, arbitration courts are independent."

After competing at a meeting in Valencia, Spain, last week Ottey said she was "100 percent innocent" of knowingly taking drugs.