Athletics maintains Russia ban over doping

BIRMINGHAM: The governing body of world athletics said yesterday it was maintaining Russia’s ban from the sport over mass doping, saying Moscow had failed to provide evidence it was adequately testing Russian competitors.

Despite Russian athletes being allowed back into Olympic competition, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said the country’s anti-doping body RUSADA had met some requirements for reinstatement, but not all. The IAAF’s medical expert Rune Andersen said the sport’s antidoping task force had “recommended to the IAAF Council and the Council accepted that RUSAF (the Russian athletics federation) not be reinstated”.

“Because while many reinstatement conditions had been met, there are several that still have not been satisfied,” Andersen told a press conference in the English city of Birmingham. “For example, RUSAF and RUSADA have still not provided a test distribution plan for 2018 that shows an adequate amount of testing of Russian athletes.”

Andersen added that RUSAF “has still not demonstrated that it has fixed previous legal issues that meant it was unable to enforce provisional doping bans.” The International Olympic Committee lifted its ban on Russia at the end of the Pyeongchang Winter Games last month.

Russia had been banned from the Olympic movement over allegations it put in place a system of state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Russian-hosted Sochi Winter Games. A team of 168 Russians competed in Pyeongchang under the banner of Olympic Athletes from Russia. Several Russian athletes also took part in last week’s World Indoor Championships in Birmingham competing as neutrals, including the winners of the women’s and men’s high jump competitions, Mariya Lasitskene and Danil Lysenko. —