The portion of the WADA report published on Thursday also called for a “forensic examination” of Russia’s second-largest bank VTB’s sponsorship of the scandal-ridden IAAF, to check for any improprieties.
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In November 2011, Diack turned over responsibility for Russian cases involving biological passport blood tests to his personal lawyer, Habib Cisse.
“It is alarming [if the alleged corruption is proven] that a small group of individuals in powerful positions within the IAAF were abetting and covering up doping for their own financial gain”, Athletics NZ chief executive Linda Hamersley said.
It accused top officials running the sport of track and field of blackmailing athletes who doped and failing to discipline them in a timely manner. “Their actions allowed dirty Russian athletes to compete and alter the results on the playing field”. “This conduct has the same effect as a cover up”.
Cisse is under investigation in France for corruption. “It is to state loudly and clearly that the Russian athletics team can not go to Rio”, Moses said. “There’s no presumption of innocence”, he said.
An independent commission WADA report claims that the IAAF “could not have been unaware of the extent of doping in athletics”.
However Mr Pound insisted that Lord Coe should remain as IAAF president.
Speaking in Munich after the publication of the report, Coe said: “The moment I became president [in August], the IAAF was being criticised for all sorts of things”. A contrite Coe later thanked Pound for the hard-hitting findings.
The work of Wada’s independent commission is now complete and the clean-up operation continues at the IAAF. With regards the IAAF’s reaction to the tests, which were taken between 2001 and 2012, the report says the governing body was “suitably reactive”.
Pound said he couldn’t think of anyone better than Coe to help athletics recovery from the scandal.
The report’s co-author, Professor Richard McLaren, made clear that it had by no means offered a full account of the scandal, telling the news conference in Munich: “We may have only examined the tip of the iceberg in respect to athletes who may have been extorted”. He said he doesn’t believe the federation’s problems are as grave as those that have brought down the leadership of soccer governing body FIFA. Ex-president Lamine Diack, who was in charge for 16 years until August 2015, controlled the body to the extent he could hand jobs to family members “without opposition”.
Jones added it was possible that Diack could have engaged in a number of operations without the knowledge of Coe and other members of the IAAF.
Pound’s report was tougher on the IAAF Council, saying it was too easy just to blame the failures on Diack, who along with his son Papa Massata Diack and other officials is under investigation by French police. Dolle received a five-year ban.
All Russian track athletes have been banned from worldwide competition pending an overhaul of their country’s track federation and anti-doping authority.
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– Coe has performed a U-turn and acknowledged that there was an IAAF cover-up, but maintains he was personally unaware of any corruption and has vowed there can be no repeat of such a “horror show”.
