Athletes paid officials millions to cover up doping, Paris court is told
● EX-IAAF chief Diack and others on trial for corruption over London 2012
Top athletes hushed up doping by giving millions of pounds in illicit pay-offs to corrupt administrators, a Paris court was told on the first day of the trial of EX-IAAF president Lamine Diack and others.
Wearing a face mask, Diack, once among the most influential leaders in Olympic sports, was present on the first of six days of hearings that will weigh evidence that his presidency of track and field’s governing body was riddled with corruption, hurting athletes who faced competitors who were suspected of doping but have since testified that they paid to keep competing.
The Paris court will weigh evidence that Russian athletes paid millions to hide their suspected doping so they could compete at the London Olympics in 2012 and other competitions. Seized documents suggested that athletes paid to have doping charges buried or delayed. This was dubbed “full protection”, the court president said, outlining the case with tentacles stretching from Europe to Asia and Africa.
Gabriel Dolle, who oversaw drug-testing at the IAAF and is accused of taking £170,000 in payments, told the court that Diack asked him that suspected doping cases involving Russian
athletes be handled “reasonably” to avoid a scandal that could affect IAAF deals with sponsors.
Dolle said he agreed to a “special, discreet” treatment for some athletes suspected of doping, which would have involved them being quietly prevented from competing. He said he was “furious” when some of them were then allowed to compete at the London Olympics.
“It was counter to what had been agreed. It was a betrayal,” he said.
Dolle is being tried on a corruption charge. He acknowledged having taken an envelope of money in 2013 from Papa Massata Diack, one of Diack’s sons. Dolle said Papa Massata Diack told him the money is “for what you’re doing for the Russian cases”.
Papa Massata Diack also faces corruption, money laundering and breach of trust charges. He lives in Senegal, shielded from an international arrest warrant issued by France.
Watching from the public gallery was French marathon runner, Christelle Daunay, who competed against one of the athletes, Russian runner Liliya Shobukhova, who later testified to investigators about illicit payments to hush up doping. Beaten by Shobukhova at the 2011 Chicago Marathon, Daunay is a civil party to the case and is seeking £98,000 in damages and compensation for earnings.
“It was a whole system and when you see all the money involved, it’s shocking,” Daunay said.
Lamine Diack, 87, who served as president of the governing body for nearly 16 years, is one of the alleged recipients of the payments. He presided over an era when Usain Bolt made track and field wildly popular. But Diack’s legacy, and the IAAF’S credibility, was badly damaged when he was arrested in France after he stepped down in 2015.
Investigators claim athletes were squeezed for payments to cover up doping.
Shobukhova testified that she alone paid the equivalent of £400,000, a large chunk of which was subsequently refunded when she was later suspended for doping despite the alleged pay-off, the court president detailed.
Diack is being tried for corruption, money laundering and breach of trust. Prosecutors say he directly or indirectlysolicited£3millionfromathletes suspected by the IAAF of doping, who paid to have their names cleared so they could continue competing. About two dozen Russian athletes were reportedly involved.
Prosecutors have also charged Diack with receiving a £1.2m payment from Russia for use in politics in his native Senegal. Prosecutors say the money was creamed off sponsorship and TV rights deals, negotiated with Russian officials in exchange for slowing down doping cases targeting Russian athletes.
Diack is also accused of enabling his son to embezzle IAAF sponsorship revenue from Russia’s VTB Bank, Chinese oil firm Sinopec and broadcaster CCTV, South Korean tech giant Samsung and others.
Also being tried for corruption is a lawyer who advised Diack, Habib Cisse.
Two Russians are being tried in their absence, Valentin Balakhnichev, a former IAAF treasurer, and Alexei Melnikov, a coach who led Russia’s long-distance running programme.