Four sports scandals to watch this year

Doping and financial scandals have increasingly shamed sport in the past 12 months. Here are four to look out for this year.

Russia

Barely a week goes by without new cases of doping in Russian sport. The International Association of Athletics Federations has extended its suspension of Russian competitors until February. World Anti-Doping Agency chief Craig Reedie said that Russia is “quite a long way off” being compliant with international doping statutes. Russia has passed a law making doping a criminal offence but it has denied accusations in the McLaren report of state-run doping.

Football

United States prosecutors have not given up their campaign and eight key Fifa officials will go to trial in New York on November 6, unless talks about possible guilty pleas succeed. Former Fifa vice-president Jeffrey Webb, who has pleaded guilty to racketeering, conspiracy, wire fraud and money laundering, could be sentenced in May. Two other former Fifa vice-presidents, Jack Warner and Nicolas Leoz, could be extradited to the US in 2017.

Cycling

In April 2016, Femke van den Driessche, a former European youth cyclocross champion from Belgium, became the first person to be banned for using a hidden electric motor. She may not be the last. Thomas Voeckler, a former holder of the Tour de France leader’s yellow jersey, said he was “convinced” that the motors have been used by professionals.

Infrared cameras were used on this year’s Tour.

Weightlifting

Weightlifting accounted for 48 of the 104 positive tests detected in new analyses on samples from the 2008 Beijing Games and London 2012. The shaming of Kazakhstan’s Ilya Ilyin, who won a gold medal at each Games, highlighted the crisis facing the sport. Even the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said that Russia’s and Bulgaria’s multiple doping failures were “shocking” before banning them from the Rio Olympics in August. IWF president Tamas Ajan said in Rio that Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus would be banned for a year because of their high number of doping failures. — AFP