Mikhail Butov, the general-secretary of the country’s athletics federation, said on Wednesday that Russian athletics knows it has a “problem with doping”, but an Olympic ban would punish its clean athletes.
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The Russian sports minister said the idea was absurd, telling the news agency Interfax; “As a member of the Fifa executive committee and president of the Russian Football Union, I can say that I’m not decorative, unlike [Dyke], and I’ve done a fair amount, this needs to be respected”.
But separately, the head of the country’s anti-doping agency, Nikita Kamayev called the report “groundless” and dismissed evidence that officials had destroyed test samples and accepted bribes from athletes.
Today a report from the World Anti-Doping Agency revealed that there was widespread doping among Russian track and field athletes.
Kenya’s government has failed to seriously tackle doping and must act swiftly to prevent its athletes being banned at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the chairman of Kenya’s Olympic committee said on Tuesday.
Many of Russia’s leading walkers have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and Tallent said he had no intention competing at the meeting unless it were moved from Russian Federation.
So, depending on whom you ask, the report is either fiction concocted by idiots or a real possibility that warranted the resignation of the man in charge of catching doping athletes.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has cancelled a meeting with the country’s sports leaders because of “heavy rain” in Sochi.
“We have this enquiry about athletics, the global Federations will draw its conclusion and we’ll take the necessary measures”.
“It’s pretty disturbing”, said former WADA chief Dick Pound, who headed the three-man commission, adding that the extent of the cheating was “worse than we thought”.
The crisis engulfing athletics, long viewed as the flagship of the Olympic Games, comes hot on the heels of a huge corruption scandal at world football’s top body FIFA and as cycling is still reeling from the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.
Australia’s Olympic chef de mission Kitty Chiller said she hoped the IAAF’s new president Sebastian Coe would have the courage to “do what’s required”.
“I’ve made it clear that we will, once we get the relevant information from IAAF, withdraw and reallocate medals with regard to Russian athletes which may have been doped”.
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The commission recommended suspension of Russia from all world athletics competition and examined allegations of doping, cover-ups, and extortion in Russian athletics.
