Friday, Mar 29, 2024 | Last Update : 03:22 PM IST

  Doping Saga: Russia faces exile as IAAF decides fate

Doping Saga: Russia faces exile as IAAF decides fate

AFP
Published : Nov 14, 2015, 6:07 am IST
Updated : Nov 14, 2015, 6:07 am IST

Russia, accused of “state-sponsored” doping, have said they are ready to establish a new anti-doping agency hours before world athletics chiefs meet with exclusion from the 2016 Olympics a potential l

Russia, accused of “state-sponsored” doping, have said they are ready to establish a new anti-doping agency hours before world athletics chiefs meet with exclusion from the 2016 Olympics a potential long-term consequence for Moscow.

Sebastian Coe, the recently-elected president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, will not be at the organisation’s headquarters in Monaco but will preside over a conference call of the body’s 26 members at around 1800GMT from London.

Russian sports minister Vitaly Mutko told R-Sport news agency hours before the IAAF meeting that Moscow was ready to reform or “create a new anti-doping organisation” if the IAAF or the World Anti-Doping Agency demanded it.

A simple majority is all that will be needed to confirm a suspension for Russia who were accused of widespread doping by an independent commission set up by WADA in a report which has shaken track and field, one of the Olympic Games’ flagship attractions.

The 335-page report also blasted Russian officials for blackmailing athletes to cover up positive tests as well as destroying test samples.

Although Russian officials are expected to offer an olive branch by admitting to some cases of cheating, the IAAF is under huge pressure to take strong action less than a year out from the Rio Olympics. Of the 26 members on the IAAF Council, nine are European.

“Europe will support Sebastian Coe. We have full confidence in him. We are all on the same page,” Svein Arne Hansen, the president of European Athletics, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

However, one leading IAAF council member, legendary Ukraine pole-vaulter Sergei Bubka who lost out to Coe in the race for the organisation’s top job, warned that it would be wrong to punish innocent athletes for the transgressions of others.

“All those involved, officials, managers or coaches, must pay the price,” Bubka told the AIPS world sports journalists association.

“But ordinary athletes, those who have nothing to do with this matter, should not have to miss a single competition.”

‘No Olympic boycott’ The IAAF, he said, needed to live up to its responsibilities as an important player on the world sports stage but it must take it “case by case, person by person”.

On Thursday, Russia sent a formal reply to the allegations ahead of Friday’s meeting. Acting president of Russia’s athletics federation Vadim Zelichenok said that it had produced the response “in such a way as to try to prove our innocence”.

“How many pages is it One or 100, it’s not important,” he added.

Location: Monaco