Coe cleared by IAAF but Collins stands by doping report

The chairman of the parliamentary committee that accused Lord Coe of “misleading” MPS has said it stands by that conclusion, despite the two-time Olympic champion beingclearedofanywrongdoing by world athletics’ governing body.

The IAAF’S ethics board announced yesterday that it was closing its investigation into Coe as it could find no evidence that he had misled parliament over what he knew about corruption and doping within the sport before becoming IAAF president in August 2015.

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee chairman Damian Collins, however, is not backing down.

The Conservative MP said: “Lord Coe either knew more than he suggested he did when he gave evidence to the committee, or he knew enough about the Liliya Shobukova case to have asked more questions about it within the IAAF at the time.

“The committee stands by the conclusions of its 2018 report ‘Combatting Doping in Sport’.”

Coe took over as world athletics’ boss three months before his predecessor Lamine Diack and several close associates were arrested in France on allegations they had covered up Russian doping cases in return for money.

The DCMS committee had already started investigating the effectiveness of the global anti-doping system at that point and called in Coe, a former Conservative MP who was made a life peer in 2000, to help their inquiry.

Coe told the MPS he had been unaware of the extent of

DAMIAN COLLINS

Russia’s cheating and, more importantly, the IAAF’S role in keeping that quiet, until a German TV documentary first revealed the scandal in December 2014.

In January 2017, however, the former London Marathon boss David Bedford appeared before the same committee and told them he had emailed details of a scheme to extort money from Shobukhova, the winner of the women’s race in 2010 and a three-time Chicago Marathon champion, four months before Coe claimed he first learned of IAAF corruption.

This prompted the committee to write a highly critical paragraph about Coe’s evidence in its report.

The report said Coe “may not have read the email and attachments sent to him by David Bedford, but it stretches credibility to believe that he was not aware, at least in general terms, of the main allegations that the [IAAF] ethics commission had been asked to investigate”.

Coe has always maintained that he did not read Bedford’s emails personally and was 2 Lord Coe was the subject of an investigation by the IAAF into what he knew about corruption and doping within athletics before becoming the body’s president. on holiday at the time anyway, but his personal assistant read him the body of the messages – though not their more detailed attachments.

Coe’s PA then forwarded these emails to the chairman of the IAAF’S ethics commission, Michael Beloff QC, which Coe followed up with a phone call to check he had done the right thing.

Beloff told him he had and the matter was now best left to the ethics body, which meant Coe was correct when he told the DCMS committee that he did not know the details of the Shobukhova case until later.

Coe welcomed the IAAF conclusion and said: “I hope this demonstrates that no-one is above the rules and everyone in the sport is subject to the same scrutiny.”

“Lord Coe either knew more than he suggested or knew enough to have asked more questions”