Cycling’s governing body, the UCI, says that it is unconcerned by the athletics doping scandal that erupted after an appointed commission published its report on Monday.
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The ban takes effect just days after a World Anti-Doping Agency-commissioned report detailed evidence of systemic, state-sponsored doping among Russian athletes.
The sport’s top brass, chaired by IAAF president Sebastian Coe, voted 22-1 in favour of provisionally suspending the superpower for an indefinite period.
“Today we have been dealing with the failure of (the All-Russian Athletic Federation) and made the decision to provisionally suspend them, the toughest sanction we can apply at this time”.
Putin was speaking after his sports minister Vitaly Mutko, who was described by Wada commission chairman Dick Pound as being “complicit” in the scandal, had said Britain’s anti-doping system must be worth “zero” if it failed to catch six Russian athletes with previous suspicious test results whom the Wada report said competed in London in 2012. “There can be no more important focus for our sport”.
Earlier in the week, the Kremlin’s spokesman said the allegations were groundless and Russia’s sports ministry said its anti-doping policy had strictly complied with WADA norms. “However, we explained that all these irregularities happened under the old leadership of the VFLA and took place a few time ago”.
Russian Federation will likely receive a provisional suspension at that meeting, prior to a formal disciplinary hearing, which can be regarded as a first step toward a ban from the Olympics.
Under the terms of the suspension, no Russian athlete or support staff will be entitled to participate in worldwide events including the Olympic Games – although the chances of Russia being excluded from Rio next year look slim.
If the suspension is upheld, Russian Federation will be banned from the 2016 Olympics in Rio. “So I have reiterated that doping abuse is not the problem of a country or even of athletics, it is a problem of sport and we can find a solution only by joining efforts”.
Russian Federation will also be stripped of hosting the world race walking team championships in Cheboksary from May 7-15, and the world junior championships in Kazan from July 19-24.
People walk at the building where Russia’s anti-doping agency, RUSADA, in Moscow, Friday, November 13, 2015.
Both the IAAF suspension and WADA’s ruling rules out Russian Federation as host of global competitions.
But I’d like to issue a pressing request: “don’t reduce all our athletes to the same level”, said Isinbayeva, who has set 28 world records in women’s pole vault during her career.
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Meanwhile, Coe has brought in Paul Deighton, the former chief executive of London 2012, to supervise a reform programme of the IAAF and accountants from Deloitte have already been tasked with poring through the body’s books amid widespread allegations against Coe’s predecessor Lamine Diack and the former head of the IAAF’s anti-doping programme Gabriel Dollé.
