Russian coaches are still breaching bans they have received, says task force

LONDON: Russia will remain banned from international athletics until after the World Championships in London this summer.

The country will stay as global outcasts because they were judged not to have made significant enough improvements since state-sponsored doping in the country was exposed.

A task force instructed by the IAAF, athletics world governing body, said it will take until at least November this year before Russia can be brought back in from the cold.

They were expelled in November 2015 when a World Anti-Doping Agency report blew the lid on a systematic programme of doping and cover-ups.

Rune Andersen, the Norwegian who heads the task force, said there is still a lack of acceptance among high-ranking politicians in Russia that doping in the country was systemic.

President Vladimir Putin has made clear he believes the ban on Russian athletes competing at last summer’s Olympics in Rio was the result of a witch-hunt.

Andersen said improvements were noticeable but there was still a way to go.

“My report shows clearly that among the leadership of track and field in Russia there has been a shift in culture,’ he said.

“To make that go down in that huge country is a huge undertaking.

“It’s difficult to measure for us. We see the documentary which showed that Russian coaches are still breaching bans they have received.

In the Russian track and field association we think there is an honest will to do something.

“Whether that goes for the political leadership in the country I don’t know, I am not that certain.’

The extension to the ban is likely to lead to a surge of athletes applying to compete under a neutral flag at the World Championships in London in August, following the lead of 35 Russian athletes who have already made submissions to the IAAF.

There will also be an immediate stop to transfer of allegiances after a surge in East African distance runners being poached by Arab and European countries.

Kenya-born Ruth Jebet won the 3 000m steeplechase in Rio for Bahrain. The same country took marathon silver through Eunice Kirwa, also from Kenya.

IAAF president Lord Coe said: “It has become abundantly clear with regular multiple transfers of athletes especially from Africa that the present rules are no longer fit for purpose.

“Athletics, which at its highest levels of competition is a championship sport based upon national teams, is particularly vulnerable in this respect.

“Furthermore, the present rules do not offer the protections necessary to the individual athletes involved and are open to abuse.” – Daily Mail