The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) today (Nov. 13) provisionally revoked Russia’s membership from the organization after a report released earlier this week by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) documented wide ranging and institutionalized doping by the country’s athletes.
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Of 23 eligible council members, 22 voted in favour of the sanction with one voting against.
The commission, established by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), revealed on Monday it had found evidence of “widespread cheating through the use of doping substances and methods” in Russian athletics. The ARD’s two-part documentary, entitled Geheimsache Doping (Secret Doping Case), claimed that Russian athletes systematically took banned substances on instructions from their coaches.
WADA has recommended that Russian track athletes be allowed to compete if their federation enacts immediate reforms.
We never win because we never take banned performance-enhancing drugs. The allegations have raised the prospect of Russia’s track and field athletes being denied participation in 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
The under-fire IAAF president, himself a former member of Parliament, will appear before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee on December 2.
“We may miss one or two competitions, but for athletes with clean consciences to miss the Olympics or a world championships would be real stupidity”, he said in Moscow. Mutko also believes the ban could be lifted before the world indoor champions in the United States in March 2016. The world junior track championships and world race-walking championships were both supposed to be held in Russian Federation next year.
To ban innocent and not connected to that doping scandal athletes from competing in worldwide events and Olympic Games in Rio is not fair.
We gave a detailed reply to every point they made: “or we agreed and pledged to change the situation, or we disagreed”, he said.
But the report by the WADA panel outlined a deep-rooted, systematic doping system that cast doubt on the entire Russian athletics program, making it hard to judge which athletes are clean.
The decision was made at the offices of CSM Sport & Entertainment in London via a conference call to the other delegates in the council. “It is why our council has sent such a strong message”.
Asked if he had considered resigning over the doping affair, Mutko said: “I have not thought about that”.
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Moscow’s reaction to the scandal has been mixed with some officials dismissing the accusations as “groundless” while President Vladimir Putin ordered his sports authorities to crack down on any wrongdoing.
