SAO PAULO — Two coaches on the Brazilian team are taking the blame for the doping of five athletes who were preparing for the world championships in Germany.

Jayme Netto and Inaldo Sena said during a news conference Wednesday that the Brazilian athletes were given shots of the endurance-booster EPO without their knowledge.
The coaches said the athletes were told they were being given amino acid shots. Netto and Sena said they were misled by a physiologist who said the amount of EPO being administered would not show up on doping tests. The physiologist is not part of the Brazilian athletics team.
“I take the blame for allowing them to take the shots,” Netto said. “I am guilty, not the athletes. Everyone has the right to make mistakes and I made a mistake. Athletics is over for me.”
The Brazilian athletics confederation said Tuesday that Bruno Lins Tenorio de Barros, Jorge Celio da Rocha Sena, Josiane da Silva Tito, Luciana Franca and Lucimara Silvestre presented “adverse results” in out-of-competition tests conducted June 15.
The athletes, who were already in Germany for this month’s competition, requested their “B” samples be tested and returned to Brazil to present their defense.
All five athletes trained at the same Brazilian club — Rede Atletismo. Last week, officials announced that another athlete at the club, Lucimar Teodoro, also failed a doping test in a recent competition in Brazil.
Spokeswoman Ana Lozi said the club is cooperating fully with an investigation conducted by the Brazilian confederation.
Club president Jorge Queiroz de Moraes, who is known for his fight against doping in athletics and lost a son because of drug use, sat along the two coaches at Wednesday’s press conference and heavily criticized them.
“I’m absolutely certain that the athletes are the victims,” he said. “They didn’t know what they were taking, but the two coaches did and that’s deplorable. It was a brutal shock.”
Three of the five athletes were at the Beijing Olympics last year — Barros helped Brazil finish fourth in the 4x100 meter relay, Silvestre competed in the women’s heptathlon and Tito was in the women’s 4x400 relay.
The Brazilian confederation was in the process of summoning replacements for the Brazilian team at the world championships, which begins Aug. 15 in Berlin.
The Brazilian Olympic Committee said in statement that it was fully supporting the athletics confederation in its effort to fight doping.