Coe ‘misled MPs over doping at Olympics’
He was sent email about scandal
LORD Coe has been accused of misleading MPs over how much he knew about the drugs scandal that has shaken athletics to its core.
The former Olympic champion and organiser of the London 2012 Games has always insisted he had been unaware of the full extent of corruption in his sport that allowed stars to cover up their doping shame.
But an email sent to Lord Coe – uncovered by the Daily Mail in a joint investigation with BBC Panorama – reveals he received detailed allegations about a Russian marathon champion asked to pay £360,000 to senior athletics officials to have her drugs offences covered up.
The runner, Liliya Shobukhova, was then allowed to compete at the London Olympics in 2012.
Lord Coe, now the president of the International Association of Athletic Federations, received the email outlining the scandal in August 2014.
Four months later, in December, the story became public when it was broadcast in a German TV documentary.
Despite this, Lord Coe told MPs at a parliamentary select committee in December 2015: ‘We were not aware – I was certainly not aware – of the specific allegations that has been made around the corruption of anti-doping processes in Russia.’
Last night Tory MP Damian Collins said that Lord Coe’s position as president of the IAAF will be ‘impossible’ unless he can provide a ‘robust explanation’.
He added: ‘On the evidence about doping in Russia, I think this is really significant information – that he was sent the detailed allegations four months before the evidence became public and yet denied any knowledge.
‘To the select committee he made it clear he had no specific knowledge of the allegations. That clearly wasn’t true. His response was misleading to the select committee.
‘I think he needs to make a public statement of what he knew and what he did with the information.’
After the existence of the damning email was revealed by MailOnline and the BBC last night, a spokesman for Lord Coe admitted he had received the message but failed to open it and simply forwarded it to ethics officials at the IAAF.
The email had been sent by London Marathon boss Dave Bedford, four months after he helped Shubokhova’s agent send a written complaint to the IAAF Ethics Commission. He then sent the complaint to Lord Coe, who at the time was vicepresident of the IAAF.
Yesterday Lord Coe’s spokesman said: ‘Seb has never denied hearing rumours about corruption.
‘In fact, he has said on many occasions that when alerted to rumours he asked people to pass them on to the Ethics Commission to be investigated.
‘He did receive an email from Dave Bedford that said “the attachments relate to an issue that is being investigated by the IAAF EC”.
‘This was enough for Seb Coe to forward the email to the Ethics Commission.
‘He did not feel it was necessary to read the attachments. You may think this shows a lack of curiosity.
‘He, and we, would argue that it shows a full duty of care. Ensuring the right people in the right place were aware of allegations and were investigating them.’ When Lord Coe appeared before MPs in December 2015, he said he did not know of the extent of the corruption in his sport until the allegations were made on German TV in December 2014.
He was asked by Labour MP Ian Lucas why the IAAF had not tackled the Russian doping scandal sooner when he had ‘such a prominent role in the organisation’.
Lord Coe replied: ‘We were not aware – I was certainly not aware – of the specific allegations that had been made around the corruption of anti- doping processes in Russia.’
During an interview with ITn in november 2015, Lord Coe was asked how it could be that he knew so little of what was going on. ‘These allegations are truly shocking,’ he said. ‘The allegations that corruption has taken place in our organisation are truly shocking. And no I did not know the basis of those allegations.’
And to Channel 4’s Jon Snow he said: ‘Those allegations have come as a shock to all of us.’
Over the past two years athletics has been left stunned by a string of doping scandals which suggested that officials conspired with star athletes to hush up the results of positive drug tests.
The blackmail plot allegedly orchestrated by officials at the top of Coe’s organisation enabled Russian distance running star Shobukhova to compete illegally in the 2012 Olympics.
Lord Coe, who became IAAF president in 2015, has always insisted he was unaware of the full scale of the scandal. But critics have insisted that he must have known more than he publicly admitted to.