International Amateur Athletic Federation

A group of South African track and field athletes plan to attend next week's World Championships in Tokyo and to seek full membership in the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which has rescinded a 25-year ban because of racial apartheid policies. The athletes, angered by a decision by South African track and field administrators to reject the IAAF's invitation to compete in the championships, formed their own group and asked to take part.

Two-time world champion hurdler Greg Foster has been suspended from competition for three months for testing positive for substances commonly found in over-the-counter cold medications. The Athletics Congress said Thursday that Foster tested positive at the Sunkist Invitational indoor meet in Los Angeles on Jan. 19 for pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine, substances banned by the International Amateur Athletic Federation.

Black African nations "are ready to participate in the Seoul Olympics," a spokesman said, apparently satisfied at the International Amateur Athletic Federation's effort to bar Zola Budd. But Sam Ramsamy, general secretary of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee, also leveled stinging criticism at John Holt, secretary general of the IAAF, accusing Holt, a Briton, of ineptitude and possible bias.

The international governing body for track and field will recommend to its Council and Congress that athletes holding records or titles be stripped of them if they admit under oath to taking banned substances. Primo Nebiolo, president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, said Saturday that the recommendation would apply to all "world, continental or national records and any title(s)."