ATHLETICS’ REPUTATION IN TATTERS
Lord Coe condemned by MPs for suppressing doping revelations
LORD COE ‘misled’ MPs on what he knew about doping in Russian athletics and is the figurehead of a sport with a ‘ tattered reputation’, says a damning report.
Coe, president of athletics’ world governing body the IAAF, was heavily criticised by a parliamentary select committee last night, with MPs questioning the IAAF’s ‘ apparent desire to suppress revelations about doping’.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport report also expressed ‘deep concern’ about world athletics’ willingness to share information with anti-doping agencies and asked whether the organisation is ‘fully committed’ to investigating ‘difficult issues when they arise’.
The report concluded: ‘These are matters of the greatest seriousness and affect the reputation of both the IAAF and Coe.’ Double Olympic champion Coe came in for particular condemnation over his bungled handling of initial claims Russian distance runner Liliya Shobukhova was asked to pay £330,000 to senior athletics officials to cover up positive doping tests and compete at London 2012.
Coe told MPs he did not know about ‘specific allegations’ until a German TV documentary aired in December 2014 but, as this newspaper and the BBC revealed in June 2016, he had been informed via an email from David Bedford, former race director of the London Marathon, four months earlier. Coe claimed in December 2015 he neglected to open the attachment with Bedford’s email and sent it on to Michael Beloff, chair of the IAAF’s ethics commission.
The DCMS report, however, concluded it ‘ stretches credibility’ to believe Coe was not aware of the allegations, ‘at least in general terms’. It added it was ‘ disappointing’ that the 61- year- old did not use the opportunity to ‘ make sure he was fully informed’.
MPs said Coe’s observation in August 2015 that doping allegations were a ‘declaration of war’ on athletics was ‘ill-judged’. The peer was also ridiculed for his response to questions about why the IAAF did not publish a World Anti-Doping Agency-sponsored report into doping in athletics, known as the Tubingen paper, until August 2017, some six years after it was completed.
The study, conducted by academics from the University of Tubingen in Germany, found doping was ‘ remarkably widespread among elite athletes’ and concluded at least 29 per cent of competitors at the 2011 World Championships in South Korea ‘had cheated in the past year’. The select committee said it was ‘frankly risible’ for Coe to claim in December 2015 that there was no need for the IAAF to publish the documents.
It added: ‘We find the IAAF’s stated reasons for blocking publication of the study to be unconvincing, and we are concerned their behaviour indicates a lack of transparency and, worse, an apparent desire to suppress revelations about doping in sport.
‘It is another example of a reluctance to share evidence relating to doping which suggests the IAAF is more concerned with preventing dissemination of evidence than addressing the core issue of doping itself. We call on Lord Coe, as president, to ensure that the IAAF acts resolutely at all times to tackle doping in athletics and to restore its tattered reputation.’ Speaking to BBC 5 Live’s
Sportsweek programme before the report was released, Lord Coe was asked whether he regretted sending a statement and refusing to appear in front of the committee when called for a second time in January 2017.
‘I sat for well over three hours in the first select committee hearing (in December 2015),’ he said. ‘The questions I was posed, I answered.’ Coe refused to comment yesterday.