Officials voted 22-1 in favour of the provisional sanction, which came in the wake of damning revelations by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of systematic doping and cover-ups in Russian Federation.
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Russian Federation was told by the IAAF to ban athletes, doctors, coaches and others who doped or were complicit in it and implement reforms, including encouraging whistleblowing. It will have to satisfy an IAAF inspection commission that it has ticked all the boxes required to be allowed back into the fold. The Russians could have requested a hearing during the meeting, but elected to waive that right. “I would very much [like to] hear the explanation for this”, Eriksson said.
He is, however, due to be grilled about his Nike connection by MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee next week.
The timing of the allegations of Coe’s conflict of interest is not great for either the former two-time Olympic 1500m champion or the IAAF.
Diack is now at the forefront of a major corruption scandal – accused of accepting bribes to hide doping.
“Blame it on an old president on the eve of his departure who wanted to take this opportunity to give this opportunity to the United States”, Diack said after stepping down following 16 years in the role as IAAF president. Still, he will nearly surely face questions on the issue at his news conference.
The former head of the bid of the Swedish city of Gothenburg, which had been planning a campaign to host the event only to discover the IAAF had awarded it to Eugene without a bidding contest, told Reuters on Wednesday that the potential for Coe’s conflict of interest in it needed investigating.
“Seb believed, along with many other council members, that the usual process would be followed and encouraged Eugene to enter the bidding cycling for 2021 which would be decided in November 2016”.
It was at that meeting of the IAAF’s council that Diack did the opposite and asked his colleagues to award the championships directly to Eugene without a contest, which they did by 23 votes to one, with one abstention.
Eriksson also said Coe had indicated that the Eugene award was being investigated by French police as part of a corruption inquiry into the IAAF leadership of Lamine Diack, who stood down in August.
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UK Sport, a government-funded public body which also receives cash from Britain’s National Lottery, contributed 63,000 pounds ($95,000) to British public relations company Vero Communications for its work on Coe’s campaign.
