But WADA’s latest report, which provides an unsettling look at the corruption of the IAAF under the 16-year reign of former president Lamine Dick, makes it clear that IAAF knew about this doping scandal well before November.
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Pound had promised a “wow” factor in the second part of his investigation into the scandal and today’s report, obtained early by the Associated Press from an unidentified person, carries several explosive revelations.
“There are many questions that suggest that major political forces are behind this”, Mutko told R-Sport news agency following the report by a WADA independent commission.
Independent Commission (IC), presents the findings of his Commission’s Report surrounding allegations of doping in sport, during a press conference in Munich, Germany, on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. He vowed the IAAF would not repeat the mistakes of the past and would take heed of the report’s recommendations.
The IAAF, which is the world’s athletics governing body, has come under criticism since the allegations came to light, and last week, senior officials Papa Massata Diack – the son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack – Valentin Balakhnichev and Alexei Melnikov were issued with lifetime bans. That included an indication that Diack, a former IOC member, was prepared to sell his vote in the 2020 Olympic hosting contest won by Tokyo in exchange for sponsorship of IAAF events.
VTB said in November its sponsorship deal with the IAAF was ending, shortly after a previous WADA report detailed doping in Russian track and field.
The report says: “The Alptekins agreed to pay something if a guarantee was given”, and gave Diack – who was liaising with IAAF anti-doping manager Gabriel Dolle – a first sum of 35,000 euros ($38,000).
The Wada report also says that Nick Davies, Coe’s right-hand man who is the subject of an ethics investigation, was “well aware of Russian “skeletons” in the cupboard”.
According to the report, Diack and a few others constituted a “powerful rogue group” within the IAAF, but also that corruption was “embedded in the organization” and “cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on his own”. “He sanctioned and appears to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the informal illegitimate governance structure he put in place”.
Despite his report’s findings Mr Pound said there is no one better than Lord Coe to lead track’s governing body.
Diack is already under formal investigation in France on suspicion of corruption and money laundering linked to the concealment of positive drug tests in concert with Russian officials and the blackmailing of the athletes to allow them to continue to compete.
French authorities last month also issued an arrest warrant for Papa Massata Diack that was relayed by Interpol and posted Thursday as a wanted notice on the police organization’s web site.
But it also says that the illegal activity went beyond Diack. “There’s enormous amount of reputational recovery that has to occur here and I can’t… think of anyone better than Lord Coe to lead that”.
“Even if you hold all those involved accountable, it is impossible to correct the situation to ensure those in the state-supported doping program are not going to violate the rights of the clean athletes”, Tygart said.
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Russia’s track and field athletes should not be allowed to compete in the this year’s Rio Olympics as the country can not prove it is compliant with the doping rules, America’s top anti-doping official said on Thursday.
