The saga continues

Russia 'still cheating' as German broadcaster casts doubt over country's willingness to clean up drug problem

'Doping Top Secret: Russia's Red Herrings' shows coach named by Wada as supplier of banned drugs appearing to continue to work with elite athletes

Russia was last night accused of “massively violating” the conditions imposed on it in order for it to end its exile from world athletics before the Olympics.

Explosive new revelations from the German broadcaster which first exposed ‘state sponsored’ doping in the country cast major doubt on Russia’s commitment to mending its ways since it was banned by Lord Coe’s International Association of Athletics Federations almost four months ago.

• Coe ready to kick Kenya out of Rio Olympics

The latest episode of ARD’s award-winning Sport Inside programme, entitled ‘Doping Top Secret: Russia’s Red Herrings’, claimed to have uncovered evidence that a culture of doping still existed within the country.

The network declared yesterday its latest findings demonstrated that Russia’s pledge to fundamentally reform its approach to drugs had been “mere lip service”.

Last night’s programme alleged that banned coaches were continuing to operate deep in the provinces of the country and that dealers of performance-enhancing substances remained at large.

It featured secret recordings of a man identified as the successor to an individual who was head of Russia’s medical commission and an adviser on, and supplier of, doping products.

Undercover journalists were introduced to the man in question at the Russian national championships almost two weeks ago and he appeared to agree to sell them such substances.

The programme also claimed to have obtained documents suggesting a newly-elected leader of the suspended Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) had, in the past, informed athletes about dates for drugs tests.

The new allegations were aired less than a week before an IAAF taskforce delivers its first report on Russia’s response to last year’s damning findings of a World Anti-Doping independent commission into its drugs problem.

The task force, chaired by Norwegian anti-doping expert Rune Andersen, has made four visits to the country since it was set up to monitor its adherence to strict conditions imposed upon it for the reinstatement of the All-Russia Athletics Federation (Araf/RusAF).

The criteria included the severing of ties with officials, officers or staff with any past involvement in doping.

The taskforce’s report will be presented to the IAAF president Coe and his council at their meeting in Monaco on Thursday and Friday.

Last night’s programme also aired less than a week after UK Anti-Doping announced it had begun testing Russian athletes under an agreement with Rusada facilitated by Wada.

Araf and Rusada were banned in November after a Wada independent commission corroborated shocking allegations first made almost a year earlier by Sport Inside journalist Hajo Seppelt.

The IAAF said in a statement last night: “The IAAF thanks ARD and Mr Seppelt for giving the independent chair Rune Andersen of the IAAF taskforce advance access to video and audio recording material which is being broadcast in today’s ARD/WDR documentaries.

“The taskforce will look carefully into the matters raised by the latest documentaries, including discussing them with representatives of RusAF.”

Wada president Sir Craig Reedie told the Daily Telegraph: “If the further allegations in the programme are true, we will be taking these up with Russian officials.”

Joseph de Pencier, the chairman of the International Association of National Anti-Doping Organisations, condemned the appointment by Rusada of someone accused of having informed athletes about dates for drugs tests.

He told Sport Inside: “When an official intentionally informs athletes in advance of doping tests, in order to defeat the doping control, disciplinary consequences must follow. This must be investigated, and a consequence would be that this person is fired.

“We are very sceptical. According to current knowledge, Russian athletes should not be allowed to compete at the 2016 Olympic Games.”

German Athletics Federation president, Clemens Prokop, said: “Apparently, the situation, as it has been called into question by the Wada independent commission, has not substantially changed.

One Russian athlete could be at the Olympics regardless of her country’s ban.

The IAAF is to consider granting the whistle-blower who helped expose the extent of her country’s doping problem – and was forced to go into hiding – a special exemption that would allow her to return to competition.

Yuliya Stepanova, an 800 metres runner banned for two years in 2013 following abnormalities in her biological passport, could race in Rio under the Olympic flag.

There were also reports in Turkey yesterday that Gamze Bulut, who won a silver medal in the 1,500m at London 2012, had become the fifth athlete from that final to be investigated for doping since the race.

Bulut had been set to inherited the gold medal of her compatriot Asli Cakir Alptekin, who surrendered her title in August to serve a suspension for blood doping.

Turkey's Gamze Bulut has reportedly failed a drugs test, which would mean that both the gold and silver medallists in the women's 1500 metres at the 2012 Olympics in London have fallen foul of doping rules.

Bulut's compatriot Aslı Çakır Alptekin won the 1500m race at London 2012 but has since been given an eight-year ban and has been stripped of her gold medal.

Now 23-year-old Bulut, the silver medallist, has also failed a test according to reports in Zaman, Turkey's largest newspaper which was recently taken over by the Government.

Like Alptekin, Bulut has been detected following analysis of her athlete biological passport (ABP), which monitors selected biological variables over time that indirectly reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself.

The pair were training partners with Alptekin also leading home Bulut in a 1-2 at the 1500m at the 2012 European Championships in Helsinki.

Alptekin's gold medals were never reallocated to Bulut, who was always suspected of doping due to her extraordinary success seemingly coming from nowhere.

European Athletics told insidethegames last week that Bulut would receive the Helsinki gold, but this will now likely change.

Bulut has hardly raced outside Turkey since her silver medal at London 2012.

Her last notable international performance was when she won the gold medal in the 5,000 metres at the European Athletics Under-23 Championships in Tampere in Finland in 2013.

The London 2012 1500m final has become notorious for the doping records of those who took part.

Russia's Tatyana Tomashova, fourth in that race, served a two year doping ban from 2008.

The fifth-placed Abeba Aregawi, Sweden's Ethiopian-born runner, meanwhile, reportedly failed a test for Meldonium, it was revealed on Monday (February 29).

Seventh-placed Natallia Kareiva of Belarus was banned in 2014 following abnormalities in her ABP, while ninth placed Russian Ekaterina Kostetskaya was also also given a two-year sanction in the same year.

The news is the latest image blow for athletics with the third part of the WDR/ARD documentary on doping in Russia due to be released today.

It was revealed in January that the 30-year-old Alptekin had allegedly been bribed by two sons of Lamine Diack, the former President of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

She was told she could keep her Olympic gold medal if she paid €650,000 (£490,000/$700,000) by Papa Massata Diack, currently the subject of a criminal investigation along with his father.

The IAAF said they would not comment on the case.

Jenny Simpson Statement on Abeba Aregawi Doping Positive: “What has been announced today is far from justice served…”

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden's Ethiopian-born 1,500 metres runner Abeba Aregawi can run for Sweden at the upcoming World Indoor Championships in Portland despite a storm over her Swedish citizenship and tax affairs, officials said on Saturday.

Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that Aregawi, who is due to defend her title in Oregon next month, had told Sweden's migration board that she was resident in the country to gain citizenship but during a recent tax investigation into her affairs she said she had never lived there.

Sweden's Athletics Association general secretary Stefan Olsson told Reuters the controversy would not affect Aregawi's participation in Portland but she would be asked to explain the situation.

"She has done the right thing, the migration board have made their judgement and the tax authority have made theirs. At the moment there is nothing to suggest that it will affect her sporting efforts," Olsson said in a telephone interview.

"As long as the authorities have said that everything is okay, we have no reason to do anything else. On the other hand, we work a lot with confidence and trust and we want to be able to trust what people say in different contexts."

Olsson said the association would contact Aregawi to hear her side of the story.

Expressen reported on Saturday that Aregawi, who also won the world outdoor 1,500 title in 2013, had told Swedish tax authorities that she was not liable for tax as she had never lived in the country.

This was at odds with a citizenship application made by the 25-year-old which entitled her to start competing for Sweden in 2012, according to the tax authority.

Describing her explanation as "somewhat strange", tax authority documents showed Aregawi blamed language issues for the inconsistencies, Expressen said, adding that tax officials had ordered her to pay 11,112 Swedish crowns ($1,299.57) in back taxes.

French prosecutors have widened their investigation into corruption in athletics to include the bidding and voting processes for the hosting of the 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

Lamine Diack, the former president of world governing body the IAAF, isalready being investigated by French authorities.

He was arrested last year on corruption and money laundering charges, over allegations he took payments for deferring sanctions against Russian drugs cheats.

Confirming the investigation was being widened, an official from the prosecutor's office said: "We are looking at these elements, but at this stage it is a question of verification. Nothing has been proved."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has told the BBC it wants to be a party to the French investigations.

Tokyo, which will host the 2020 Olympics, defended the voting process when it came under scrutiny in January.

And Rio 2016 organisers said on Tuesday that the city "won the right to host the Games because it had the best project".

"The difference in the votes, 66 to 32 against Madrid, excludes any possibility of an election that could have been rigged," communications director Mario Andrada said.

The background

Diack, 82, was head of the International Association of Athletics Federations for 16 years until he stepped down last August.

He resigned as an honorary member of the IOC in November - a day after being provisionally suspended by the organisation following the start of the French investigation.

In December, a World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report into alleged IAAF corruption claimed Diack had been prepared to sell his vote to decide on the host city for the 2020 Games in exchange for sponsorship of IAAF events.

Diack's son Papa Massata - who was employed by his father as a marketing consultant for the IAAF - is also under investigation, and a warrant for his arrest has been issued by Interpol.

Last month, Wada investigators called for a follow-up inquiry into all World Championships awarded by the IAAF for 2009-2019 after finding evidence of possible wrongdoing.

Diack Jr has been banned for life by the IAAF, but told the BBC in Decemberhe and his father were innocent of the claims against them.

Prosecutors are now looking into whether the alleged corruption could have extended to vote-rigging.

The Guardian claimed last year that - according to leaked emails - Diack Jr requested a payment of $5m from Doha in 2011, shortly before a decision was made about the city's unsuccessful bid for the 2017 World Championships. The Doha bid denies any wrongdoing.

In January, the newspaper reported he apparently arranged for "parcels" to be delivered to six IOC members in 2008, when Qatar was bidding for the 2016 Olympics, which will be hosted by Rio.

An IOC spokesman said the organisation had been in close contact with French prosecutors since the beginning of this investigation.

He added: "The IOC's chief ethics and compliance officer had already asked for the IOC to be fully informed in a timely manner of all issues that may refer to Olympic matters and has already applied to become a party to the investigations led by the French judicial authorities."

Analysis - BBC sports editor Dan Roan

"With the disgraced former president of the IAAF - Lamine Diack - having served as an IOC member between 1999 and 2013, investigators will want to know whether he could have influenced a bloc of voters when it came to deciding Olympic hosts.

"Since the 1999 Salt Lake City bribery scandal blew the lid on systematic corruption within the IOC, it has overhauled its rules, and regained trust in the integrity of its bidding process.

"But being dragged into the sprawling French probe into the IAAF's doping and extortion scandal will be something of a reality check for an organisation that has portrayed itself as a good example to crisis-hit governing bodies of sports such as football and cycling.

"Last month, Wada commission chief Dick Pound said he was 'fairly certain' the IOC was free of organised corruption, and the widening of this inquiry does not mean we are heading for a sensational revote of Tokyo 2020.

"But with investigators now taking a closer look at the bidding for an event as prestigious as the Olympics, the reputation of sport's most powerful figures will be called into question yet again."

Updated: March 1, 2016, 5:52 AM ET

Associated Press

MOSCOW -- The Russian track and field federation says its top young hurdler has been banned for steroid use.

Maxim Kosyukov, 17, won the Russian national youth title in the 110-meter hurdles in June but tested positive for methenolone at the event and has now been given a four-year ban.

Russia is a major power in hurdles events, with Sergei Shubenkov the reigning 110-meter world champion. Methenolone is the same substance that led to Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk being stripped of an Olympic gold medal in 2012.

The Russian track federation said Kosyukov's sanction was imposed by the Russian Olympic Committee.

The federation is not allowed to impose disciplinary sanctions because it is suspended from global track over allegations of systematic, state-sponsored doping.

Updated: February 29, 2016, 4:55 PM ET

Associated Press

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia -- Nine Ethiopian runners, five of them "top athletes," are under investigation for doping, the general secretary of the country's anti-doping agency said Monday, raising fears of another damaging scandal for track and field in the run-up to the Rio Olympics.

Solomon Meaza told The Associated Press that the Ethiopian Anti-Doping Agency is investigating the five athletes he described as high-profile after they returned "suspicious" results in tests.

"To be clear, some banned (substances) were found in the five athletes," he said. "They will be summoned and asked if they have taken any banned substances (or) chemicals."

Solomon declined to name the athletes, give details of the substances they are suspected of using, or say when tests were carried out as investigations are ongoing. He stressed that more tests were needed to establish any guilt.

But he said: "There is a real concern when the upcoming investigations arrive."

The IAAF has requested contact details for the other four athletes under suspicion and the governing body is investigating them, Solomon said, adding that he has provided the details for those athletes to the IAAF through the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The Ethiopian cases will be another blow to the sport following major doping scandals in Russia and Kenya in the buildup to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August.

Russia was banned from international track and field competition in November after damning allegations of a vast scheme of doping and cover-ups. Kenya is in danger of a similar sanction after four senior track officials were suspended by the IAAF pending investigations into allegations they sought to cover up doping. Kenya also has not fallen in line with global anti-doping rules and faces an April 5 deadline to sort out its failing anti-doping program.

Like Kenya, Ethiopia is a distance running powerhouse and finished in the top five on the medal table at last year's track and field world championships in Beijing with eight medals.

The revelation by Solomon came on the same day the IAAF announced that Ethiopian-born former 1,500-meter world champion Abeba Aregawi failed a doping test and had been suspended pending an investigation. Swedish media reported that Abeba, who now competes for Sweden, failed an out-of-competition test in Ethiopia, where she trains. The IAAF said Abeba had voluntarily withdrawn from competition and asked for her backup "B" sample to be tested.

A Russian whistle-blower who helped uncover that country's doping program warned last year that Kenya and Ethiopia both had serious problems with athletes using banned substances and should be closely investigated.

Lord Coe is ready to ban Kenya's track and field team from the Olympics if the country's athletics federation is declared non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) code.

Kenya missed a deadline last week to prove to Wada it was tackling cheating.

It comes after a spate of positive drugs tests among some of the country's athletes and allegations of corruption.

"We have to be much more proactive," said Coe, president of the sport's world governing body the IAAF.

Coe said he would impose serious sanctions on any nation guilty of attempting to cover up drug-taking.

Kenya is to be placed on a 'watch-list' of nations at risk of breaching Wada's code and could be banned from international competition if non-compliant, as happened with Russia's athletes.

"We know that a disproportionate amount of reputational damage is caused by a relatively few countries," he told BT Sport's The Clare Balding Show.

"If it means pulling them out of World Championships or Olympic Games then we will have to do that.

"I know the World Anti-Doping Agency has looked very closely at the Kenyan National Anti-Doping Agency. We, of course, monitor that through the IAAF, so that work is ongoing."

On Tuesday, the chief executive of Athletics Kenya said he wanted to step down temporarily amid allegations he asked athletes for bribes to reduce doping bans.

Isaac Mwangi denies wrongdoing but wants to leave his post for 21 days while the claims are investigated by the IAAF.

For several months, Wada has been trying to persuade Kenya to set up an effective national agency so more drug tests can be conducted, but progress has been slow.

The East African country, whose athletes are dominant in distance running, topped the medal table at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing with seven gold medals.

BBC sports editor Dan Roan is told by unnamed athletes that doping is commonplace in Kenya.

But since 2011, more than 40 of its athletes have failed drugs tests.

David Howman, Wada's director general, said "a fully functional" anti-doping agency is "a vital step for a country of Kenya's sporting stature" if it is to "effectively protect clean athletes".

He added that it must be established "at the earliest opportunity".

Meanwhile, former marathon world record holder Wilson Kipsang has urged Kenya's government to strengthen their fight against doping.

Kipsang, 33, is president of the Professional Athletes Association of Kenya and was among 80 athletes who met in Eldoret on Wednesday to formulate an appeal to Kenya's government to fast-track legislation criminalising doping.

He told the Daily Nation newspaper: "We must all step up the fight against doping because if we are banned, Kenya will never be the same again. This is a country which has made its name as an athletics giant."

EMBU, Kenya (AP) — Two Kenyan athletes serving four-year bans for doping at the 2015 world championships say the chief executive of Athletics Kenya, the country's governing body for track and field, asked them each for a $24,000 bribe to reduce their suspensions.

Joy Sakari and Francisca Koki Manunga told The Associated Press that CEO Isaac Mwangi asked for the payment in an Oct. 16 meeting, but that they could not raise the money. They were informed of their four-year bans in a Nov. 27 email, but never filed a criminal complaint because, they say, they had no proof to back up their bribery accusation and also feared repercussions.

Mwangi dismissed the allegation as "just a joke," denied ever meeting privately with the athletes and said Athletics Kenya has no power to shave time off athletes' bans.

"We have heard stories, athletes coming and saying, 'Oh, you know, I was asked for money,'" Mwangi said. "But can you really substantiate that?"

Sponsored Links

Sakari, a 400-meter runner, and Manunga, a hurdler, told AP they would be willing to testify to the ethics commission of the IAAF, the global governing body of athletics.

The commission already is investigating allegations that AK officials sought to subvert anti-doping in Kenya, solicited bribes and offered athletes reduced bans. The probe has led to the suspensions of AK's president, Isaiah Kiplagat, a vice president, David Okeyo, and AK's former treasurer, Joseph Kinyua.

Sharad Rao, a former director of prosecutions in Kenya who also has adjudicated cases for the Court of Arbitration for Sport, is leading the ethics investigation for the International Association of Athletics Federations. Sakari and Manunga's decision to come forward could be a breakthrough, because Kenyan athletes have been unwilling to act as whistleblowers.

"There is obviously the reluctance on the part of the athletes to come forward," Rao said. "They don't want to stand out."

As many as a half-dozen banned athletes have privately indicated to the IAAF commission that AK officials sought to extort them and that they feel their sanctions might have been less if they had paid bribes, Rao said.

AP's interview with Sakari and Manunga is the first time Kenyan athletes have detailed such allegations publicly.

"That information would, of course, be very, very significant, very important for us," Rao said.

Rao said he has been talking to at least one other athlete who may have been approached for a bribe, and that his first priority was to get responses from Kiplagat, Okeyo and Kinyua — all three of whom have flatly denied to him that they took or solicited bribes.

Acting on AP's report, the IAAF said Wednesday it has passed Sakari and Manunga's allegations to the ethics commission. The World Anti-Doping Agency said it is "most disturbed" by the allegations that sound "eerily similar" to other recent revelations of doping cover-ups in athletics, mostly focused on Russia, and said it would seek more information to determine if it should investigate.

Sakari and Manunga, both police officers in Kenya, said Mwangi asked them for 2.5 million Kenyan shillings — or $24,000 — each.

"I told him I've never seen that much money in my life," Manunga told AP. "Even if I sold everything, I wouldn't be able to get together that amount of money."

The athletes tested positive in August for furosemide, a diuretic banned because it can mask the use of forbidden performance-enhancers, and were sent home from the worlds in Beijing. They told AP the drug was sold to them by a chemist in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, who said it would alleviate side effects of supplements they were taking. The chemist testified in defense of the athletes to AK, saying he gave them furosemide to combat water-retention caused by the supplement.

Compared to doping cases involving other athletes, their four-year bans appear harsh. World Anti-Doping Agency rules classify furosemide as a so-called "specified substance," distinguishing it from hardcore performance-enhancers like steroids or the blood-boosting hormone EPO.

For specified substances, IAAF rules allow for lesser bans of no more than two years, or even just a reprimand and no ban, if athletes can prove they weren't at fault or negligent.

To impose a four-year ban, the rules require authorities to establish that athletes intentionally cheated. But AK appears to have discounted the chemist's testimony. In the letter it sent to Manunga announcing her ban, AK said there was no "plausible explanation" for using furosemide and that the federation "can only infer" she took it intentionally as a masking agent.

Last year, Serbia's athletics federation imposed a two-year ban on 800-meter runner Nemanja Kojic for the same substance. He can return to competition in 2017; Sakari and Manunga were banned until 2019.

They said they visited Mwangi's first-floor office together, seeking news of their case. During that meeting, they said, he asked for the bribe, dangling the possibility of shaving time off their bans.

Both athletes say they are sure of the date of that meeting — Oct. 16 — because, they say, they went to the KCB bank together later that day to open accounts and deposit 600,000 Kenya shillings ($5,785) paid to each of them for being on Kenya's team at the IAAF's world relays meet in the Bahamas in May.

"He was waiting for us to give him money, so that this 'thing' disappears," Manunga said. "We left, kept quiet and later that's when our names came out and we were told that we've been banned because we did not deliver that money."

"He asked us if we could give him something. That's what he said," said Sakari. "He asked for money."

Mwangi denied that he met privately with the athletes.

"Why we avoid those kinds of things is because we know athletes are fond of making any kind of claim," he told AP.

"It is not possible to give anyone money to meddle with your case," he added. "I will contact the athletes officially and I will ask the athletes to come, the two of them, and like I said they are police officers, so we will have to involve the police force."

Soliciting a bribe is a crime in Kenya.

The athletes have told their story privately to the Professional Athletics Association of Kenya, an advocacy group of Kenyan runners. The association's secretary, Julius Ndegwa, said Sakari and Manunga came to see him and a lawyer in January.

The athletes spoke to AP in an on-camera interview in Embu, a ramshackle town 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of Nairobi where they were housed in police accommodation.

Sakari also raced at the 2012 London Olympics and 2009 worlds. In Beijing, she competed under the name Zakary, but Sakari is her preferred spelling. She indicated that she is now done with athletics, because she will be 33 when her ban expires.

Manunga, 23, said she would have paid to return sooner to competition.

"For me, those four years are too many," she said. "If I had the money, I'd have paid. But I didn't have it. So I just left."

___

Andrew Njuguna and Tom Odula in Nairobi and Mutwiri Mutuota in Embu, Kenya, contributed. John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester@ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/John-Leicester-Associated-Press-Sports-Columnis...

Three men have been arrested in Kenya after

purporting to be officials from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) prepared to take bribes

for fixing doping tests.

Kenya could pull out of Rio 2016 over Zika fears, says Olympic committee

Read more

Reports in Kenya said they were caught in an attempt to con an athlete in a hotel into giving them KSh500,000 (£4,800) in exchange for not recording a positive doping test.

“We found out that two of them were waiting around outside for the athlete, while the other one coordinated from outside the town,” said an Eldoret commanding police officer Nelson Taliti. “When the athlete suspected them, he informed the police who began to track them down.

“This is a syndicate that has been threatening upcoming athletes. They claim to be Wada officials and order them to part with money.”

An unnamed athlete told Standard Digital: “I refused to meet them in Eldoret and instead asked that they come to Kaspsabet. They refused. I consulted my coach, who advised me to report to police, just in case they were conmen.

“I did so and we went to Eldoret with the police. I asked them to produce proof that they work for Wada and they did not. Police stormed in and arrested them.”

In a statement, Wada’s Ben Nichols urged any athletes concerned about their anti-doping rights to contact them.

“Wada does not condone behaviour that breaches world anti-doping rules, including the apparent action of individuals masquerading as doping control officers in Kenya,” he said.

“Athletes concerned that their anti-doping rights are being breached in any way should contact their responsible anti-doping organisation.

“Furthermore, Wada is not a testing agency and therefore the individuals in question could not have been ‘Wada officials’ as has been suggested.”

Calls set to intensify for athletics records to be wiped after evidence emerges that Chinese world-record holder Wang Junxia was part of state-sponsored doping

• Wang Junxia took 42 seconds off the women's 10000m record in 1993

• Letter has emerged which appears to confirm the Chinese athlete was part of state-sponsored doping programme

• Calls for world records to be erased have increased following recent doping scandal in athletics

Calls for the world athletics records to be erased will intensify after the emergence of a letter that appears to confirm that Chinese distance runner Wang Junxia was part of a state-sponsored doping programme.

A member of the infamous Ma’s Army back in 1993 (named after controversial coach Ma Junren), Wang took a staggering 42 seconds off a women’s 10000m world record with a performance that no female athlete has been able to even get close to since. The best recorded time following Wang’s mark of 29mins 31.78secs was 29.53.80 by Meselech Melkamu in 2009, with sub 30 minute efforts still extremely rare over the 25-lap event.

Wang also still holds the 3000m world record and according to state media reports in China this week, she revealed in a letter in 1995 that she and other runners were forced to take ‘large doses of illegal drugs over the years’.

‘We are humans, not animals,’ says the letter. ‘For many years, [he] forced us to take a large dose of illegal drugs. It was true.’

A statement from the IAAF last night said: ‘The CCTV story confirms the existence of the letter allegedly written to the journalist only became known yesterday. Therefore the IAAF’s first action must be to verify that the letter is genuine. In this respect, the IAAF has asked the Chinese Athletics Association to assist it in that process.

‘In any case, IAAF Competition Rule 263.3 (e) note (ii) clearly states that if anyone makes an admission of guilt, the IAAF can take action: if an athlete has admitted that, at some time prior to achieving a World Record, he had used or taken advantage of a substance or technique prohibited at that time, then, subject to the advice of the Medical and Anti-Doping Commission, such record will not continue to be regarded as a World Record by the IAAF.’

Last month UK Athletics chiefs responded to the doping crisis in athletics by calling for the record books to be rewritten. In 2012 leading German doping expert Professor Werner Franke described many of the women’s world records as ‘eternal’ to this newspaper.

World beating Chinese athlete Wang Junxia admits to doping

Former Chinese long-distance runner and the world record holder in the women’s 10,000 meters race, Wang Junxia, had admitted to having been forced into doping almost 21 years ago, China’s Tencent Sports reported on Wednesday.

In a whistle-blowing letter written by Wang and signed by nine other teammates of hers in March 1995, Wang had accused their coach Ma Junren of abusing and forcing the athletes under him to take “large doses of illegal drugs over the years.”

“Our feelings are sorry and complex when exposing his deeds. We are also worried that we would harm our country’s fame and reduce the worth of the gold medals we have worked very hard to get,” read the letter.

Wang, born in 1973 in northeast China’s Jilin Province, shattered the 10,000 meters world record by 42 seconds at the Chinese national games in 1993. A month before Wang made history, Chinese women distance runners under Ma’s lead had stunned the world by sweeping the world titles in the women’s 1,500 meters to 10,000 meters events at the World Championships in Athletics in Stuttgart, Germany.

In 1993 alone, Ma’s team broke a total of 66 domestic and world records.

Wang left Ma’s team in 1995 and trained under a new coach Mao Dezhen. She then won the gold in the women’s 5,000 meters event and the silver in the 10,000 meters event at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, before retiring in 1997.

Wang’s letter was written to a reporter named Zhao Yu, who was investigating the case at that time, but it only became public on Wednesday in the Tencent Sports report. Zhao had written more details about the scandal in 1998, but they weren’t published until his book went under republication in 2014.

In the then unpublished part, some team members under Ma’s tutelage had told Zhao that they had been forced to take stimulants that exceeded the normal amount for an adult. Because of this, several athletes suffered from liver pains, but they weren’t allowed to go to a hospital. What’s more, Zhao revealed that some girls were going through abnormal changes like coarsening voice and halted periods.

Fearing that the pills would further harm them, the girls began to throw them away without Ma’s knowledge. The coach, however, would also personally injected stimulants into their bodies on a regular basis, and this they could not run away from.

In 2009, a memoir written by the former head of China’s General Administration of Sport Yuan Weimin exposed that six of the seven members of a track and field team set to participate in the 2000 Sydney Olympics had failed the drug test one month before the event. The team was then banned from the Sydney Olympics. It was then reported by China National Radio’s website that the team was actually Ma Junren’s team.

Ma announced his retirement at the age of 60 in 2004, and became the chairman of China’s Tibetan Mastiff Club.

Ever since the latest report by Tencent Sports has been published, the long-unresolved scandal has once again become a hot topic on social media in China.

Neither Wang Junxia nor Ma Junren has responded to the report so far. However, people are calling for a justice to be done with regard to Ma, Wang and all the other team members, along with a systemic rethink in order to overhaul the culture of sacrificing athletes’ health for gold medals.

A Look at the Women’s World Records When We Remove The Chinese Records and Wang Junxia’s Amazing Six Days From the Books

By LetsRun.com

February 6, 2016

According to state media reports in China, 1996 Olympic champion and women’s 3,000/10,000 world record holder Wang Junxia admitted to participating in a state-sponsored doping regime under coach Ma Junren during the 1990s. The confession came in a letter signed by Junxia and nine teammates in 1995 that was sent to journalist Zhao Yu; the letter had not surfaced until it was published by China’s Tencent Sports on Wednesday.

Junxia set the world record in the 10,000 meters on September 8, 1993, in Beijing, running 29:31.78, a mark that bested the previous record by 42 seconds and began arguably the most impressive six day stretch by a distance athlete in the sport. Junxia proceeded to break the 3,000-meter world record twice (lowering it from 8:22.62 to 8:12.19 on September 12 before running 8:06.11 the next day) and was denied the 1500 WR on September 11 only because a teammate, Qu Yunxia, beat her to the line.

The IAAF said that is currently seeking to verify the letter and in a statement (reported by the Daily Mail) said that it may move to strike the records of Junxia and the other members of “Ma’s Army” from the books. The statement reads in part:

“In any case, IAAF Competition Rule 263.3 (e) note (ii) clearly states that if anyone makes an admission of guilt, the IAAF can take action: if an athlete has admitted that, at some time prior to achieving a World Record, he had used or taken advantage of a substance or technique prohibited at that time, then, subject to the advice of the Medical and Anti-Doping Commission, such record will not continue to be regarded as a World Record by the IAAF.”

If we remove the marks of Junxia and the other Junren-coached Chinese athletes from the record books, here’s what we’re left with for the top women’s outdoor marks in the distance events:

1500

*suspended for 18 months in 1984 for refusing to take a drug test; never raced again

Athletes removed: Qu Yunxia (3:50.46), Bo Jiang (3:50.98), Lang Yinglai (3:51.34), Wang Junxia (3:51.92), Yin Lili (3:53.91), Lan Lixin (3:53.97), Zhang Ling (3:54.52), Dong Yanmei (3:55.07)

3000

Athletes removed: Wang Junxia (8:06.11), Qu Yunxia (8:12.18), Zhang Linli (8:16.50), Ma Liyan (8:19.78), Zhou Yihong (8:21.84)

5000

Athletes removed: none

10,000

*it was reported in August that Abelegesse will be charged with a doping violation stemming from the 2007 World Championships but her results and records have yet to be stripped

Athletes removed: Wang Junxia (29:31.78)

A few comments:

• • After removing the Chinese results, it becomes apparent just how much of an outlier Dibaba’s 1500 world record is. She’s over two seconds ahead of the nearest non-Chinese woman, and that runner, Tatyana Kazankina, has been linked to doping as well. In fact, the 1500 list is so crowded with suspicious names, whether they’re Chinese, Eastern European, or Turkish, that it’s extremely hard to tell which performances are genuine.

  • The 5,000, the only women’s distance world record to be routinely challenged (until Dibaba broke the 1500 WR in ’15) had no Chinese women in the top seven.

  • Many of the women’s track and field records are suspect, but few more than Junxia’s marks. Consider that in the span of six days in 1993, she produced the following performances:

.

The Wada report also called on the IAAF to suspend Russia fromcompetition

the clean athletes and rebuild trust in our sport'.

"With regard to the Olympic Games, the IOC will continue to take whatever measures needed to safeguard clean athletes, clean sport and good governance. In the most recent Olympic Summit meeting we have decided to make testing independent from sports

Doha’s bids for 2017 and 2019 world athletics championships under investigation

Read more

Warner may be tough on doping – he called for all British athletes caught cheating to be effectively banned for life – but he has the softest of soft spots for the former golden boy. Some might even call it a blind spot. “The presidency is very much a part-time role,” he said when asked to explain why the world governing body of athletics had become a discredited laughing stock. “The IAAF really needs to get round to appointing a new chief executive.”

The committee chair, Jesse Norman, understandably then asked why it had taken over a year for it not to appoint a new chief executive. “The presidency is very much a part-time role,” Warner explained again. Going round and round in circles is perfectly normal in athletics. “Lord Coe has a lot of other obligations.” Others have called them conflicts of interests.

Did Warner find it surprising that Coe still hadn’t got round to phoning the whistleblowers who had exposed the systematic doping of Russian athletes? Norman asked. He hadn’t really thought about it. “We have yet to find out if Russia’s non-suspension at the world championships was political,” he added. Someone please tell him.

Nor did Warner think that Coe’s apparent ability to miss what everyone else in the sport seemed to have known for years was any drawback. While he and the rest of UK athletics had been well aware of all the rumours about systematic doping, Coe existed at a rarified level above the sport and “hadn’t moved in those trackside circles”. The idea that Coe ought to have moved in those circles or that someone in those circles might possibly have kept him up to speed didn’t seem to have occurred to Warner.

The most surprising revelations came when the Conservative MP Damian Collins got on to the subject of Britain’s successful bid in 2011 to hold next year’s World Athletics Championships. Warner couldn’t really say why it had taken him six years to go public about the warning he had received that the Qataris were allegedly handing out brown paper envelopes stuffed with cash to voting members of the IAAF on the eve of the decision, other than the whole idea was “too fanciful”.

Russian athletes should not compete at 2016 Olympics, says UKA chairman

Read more

“You say that a member of the IAAF told you about the brown envelopes,” said Collins.

“Yes.”

“Can you tell us who that was?”

“No.”

“Was it Lord Coe?”

“I’m not going to say. It may have been, it may not have been.”

“Was it Lord Coe?” Collins asked again.

Warner still wasn’t prepared to tell, though he did concede that Lord Coe had tipped off the British that the Qataris were going to throw in $7.2m in prize money and that it would help the London bid to match it. Thanks, Seb. A man with the knack of always knowing enough but never too much. Just the kind of wit, ambition and wisdom that world athletics needs right now.

A timeline of events

3 December, 2014German broadcaster reveals a documentary exposing Russia's systemic doping problem

11 December, 2014Papa Massata Diack, son of then IAAF president Lamine Diack, steps down after accusations arise over his conduct and whether he was part of a money laundering scandal and involved with blackmailing doped athletes

2 August, 2015IAAF data leaked to German broadcaster ARD and Britain's Sunday Times claims that 12,000 blood samples taken from 5,000 athletes showed instances of cheating

5 August, 2015Lord Coe calls the allegations "a declaration of war on my sport" and says the IAAF was not involved in a cover-up

19 August, 2015Lord Coe is elected IAAF president

4 November, 2015The Guardian releases a report accusing Lamine Diack of accepting bribes to cover up doping as well as being involved in corruption and money laundering

9 November, 2015Wada releases the first report on its investigation into Russia's doping problem. The investigator, Dick Pound, says Russia's systemic doping problem is worse than he thought, that the findings are "the tip of the iceberg" and that Russian athletes should be banned from the Olympics

13 November, 2015The IAAF suspends Russia from international athletics

26 November, 2015Coe steps down from ambassadorial role at Nike

22 December, 2015IAAF official Nick Davies steps aside over an email discussing plans to delay naming Russian drug cheats

7 January, 2016The IAAF hands lifelong bans to officials involved in the scandal, including Lamine Diack and Russian athletics chief Valentin Balakhnichev

14 January, 2016Pound releases a second report, which concludes that corruption within the IAAF "cannot be blamed on a small number of miscreants" and that Diack had been "responsible for organising

and enabling the conspiracy and corruption that took place in the IAAF"

Adidas to end IAAF sponsorship deal early in wake of doping crisis

Adidas, the IAAF's biggest sponsor, has told athletics' world governing body it is to terminate their sponsorship deal four years early, the BBC has learned.

The sportswear giant informed the IAAF of its decision - understood to be a direct result of the doping scandal sweeping the sport - earlier this week.

Sources have told the BBC the move will result in tens of millions of dollars in lost income to the IAAF.

And it is sure to come as a major blow for embattled president Lord Coe.

Neither Adidas nor the IAAF have made any comment.

The BBC understands Adidas informed the IAAF in November it was considering ending their relationship early as a result of the World Anti Doping Agency (Wada) Independent Commission's first report, which detailed claims of"state sponsored doping" within Russia.

Earlier this month, the commission's chairman, Dick Pound, delivered a second, damning report, which revealed that "corruption was embedded" within the IAAF under former president Lamine Diack.

Within days, a decision at the highest level in Adidas was taken to terminate the relationship.

It is understood the German multinational believes the doping revelations in Pound's reports constitute a breach of its agreement with the IAAF.

The 11-year sponsorship deal was signed in 2008 and was due to run until 2019. At the time of signing, it was reported the deal would be worth about $33m (£23m).

But sources have told the BBC the figure is much higher, and that in terms of cash and product, it is worth about $8m (£5.6m) per year. This would mean the projected lost revenue for the IAAF over the next four years will be more than $30m (£21m).

It is not clear yet whether the IAAF will attempt to challenge the decision in court, although lawyers within Adidas are understood to be preparing for such a move.

The withdrawal of Adidas will come as a major blow to the sport - and to IAAF president Coe - in a time of unprecedented turmoil.

Coe succeeded Diack in August last year and has come under pressure over Pound's report, which said the IAAF - of which Coe was one of four vice-presidents under Diack for seven years - must have been aware of the corruption.

But despite this, Dick Pound voiced his support for Coe, saying he "couldn't think of anyone better" to lead athletics out of its current crisis.

The Wada reports on state sponsored doping as well as a French criminal investigation into corruption - which is also looking into the awarding of every World Championships since 2007, including London's successful bid to host the event in 2017 - have left the sport facing an Olympic year with major reputational damage to repair.

It now seems Adidas believes there is too much reputational risk to its brand to continue its association with the IAAF.

Adidas has also expressed its displeasure at the corruption scandal engulfing Fifa, although it remains world football's governing body's oldest commercial partner.

Scrapping records would taint clean athletes: Coe

Wada report: Three things learned from doping scandal

Speaking to BBC Radio 5 live's Sportsweek, Warner said that the night before the 2017 vote a senior IAAF official told him that Qataris were offering bribes in brown envelopes in return for support.

Warner, who has said London's bid was "completely by the book", felt the allegation was "quite shocking" but he "dismissed it".

However, he claims that, on the morning of the bid, "certain members of the IAAF and senior people at the IAAF were telling us that we were behind because the Qataris had promised to pay the $7.2m (£5m) prize money, which otherwise the IAAF would have had to pay".

Warner said the London bid decided to match that offer and "we were told that was the decisive swing factor".

He added: "I welcome any investigation into all the bidding processes because I would love to believe it was a level playing field. If it wasn't, there needs to be some recompense."

Coe said he did not know the identity of the senior IAAF official who spoke to Warner on the night before the 2017 vote.

Warner said he would tell Coe who it was after Sunday's Sportsweek broadcast finished.

Coe added: "The French police are looking at this and I have already implemented a review of our financial, marketing and sponsorship arrangements within the IAAF."

In a wide-ranging interview, Coe also said public trust in athletics might not return until "way beyond" his four-year term as IAAF president.

Sebastian Coe’s flaws mean he is the wrong man to clean up athletics

THE LAST WORD

IAAF president Lord Coe Getty Images

IAAF anti-doping director Gabriel Dollé reportedly sent a note to then-President Lamine Diack suggesting a two-tier approach when it came to dealing with Russian athletes who had positive for banned drugs ©Getty Images

Diack was last year arrested as part of a French police investigation amid allegations he was involved in an extortion plot in which money was accepted in return for tests involving Russian athletes being covered up.

His son, Papa Massata Diack, a former consultant with the IAAF, was last week banned for life by the world governing body's Ethics Commission for his role in trying to extort money from the Russian marathon runner Liliya Shubokhova.

Dollé received five years for his part in the scheme after the Ethics Commission decided his "sins were those of omission, not commission".

A spokesman for the IAAF, however, tonight claimed that there were no secret bans.

"Every suspicious ABP profile was investigated in full accordance with IAAF Rules and the World Anti-Doping Code," he said.

"All confirmed doping cases were publically sanctioned.

"Nothing was covered-up.

"In 2011 there was a huge influx of suspicious profiles coming through the ABP.

"Each case takes an average of eight months to 18 months from investigation to sanction.

"There was a need to prioritise, and in particular to expedite those cases which involved potential medal winners ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games.

"No cases were concealed or supressed, the IAAF simply tackled them in order of importance.

"Every athlete was investigated and has either been sanctioned or is currently going through a legal process as part of being sanctioned."

Russia finished second overall in the athletics medal table at London 2012 with a total of 17 medals, including eight gold.

Since then a number of Russians have come under suspicion for doping and face being stripped of their medals.

They include Sergey Kirdyapkin and Elena Lashmanova, winners of the men's 50 kilometres and women's 20km walks.

Both were banned for two years shortly afterwards.

The IAAF are now appealing against the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, believing they should be stripped of their gold medals.

Others being investigated include Mariya Savinova and Yuliya Zaripova, gold medallist in the women's 800 metres and 3,000m steeplechase respectively.

The IAAF insist any wrongdoing in covering up positive drugs tests involving Russian athletes was confined to a small minority, despite the allegations against former President Lamine Diack ©Getty Images

The report, which begins with a two-page executive summary, does not hold back in its criticism of those already sanctioned, and makes clear that they are not seeking to downplay in any way the "truly abhorrent" allegations.

The IAAF claim that "no doping case has been covered up by the IAAF" and that only four of the eight alleged cases based on suspicious athlete biological passport (APB) readings were delayed in "unexplained and highly suspicious" ways.

These concerned marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova, the 2010 London Marathon winner and three-time Chicago Marathon champion, who reportedly paid approximately £435,000 ($634,000/€583,000) to cover-up doping violations.

The other cases include two Olympic gold medallists from Beijing 2008, race walkers Valeriy Borchin and Olga Kaniskina, winners of the men and women's 20 kilometres walks respectively.

The third involves Vladimir Kanaykin, the 2011 World Championship silver medallist, who is now banned from the sport for life.

The trio also made payments which resulted in delays, the IAAF rule in agreement with WADA.

The other cases include race-walker Vladimir Kanaykin, the Olympic 20 kilometres gold medallist Valery Borchin and Olga Kaniskina, the Beijing 2008 20km winner and London 2012 silver medallist, also made payments which resulted in delays, the IAAF rule in agreement with WADA.

The IAAF claim the delays ranged between only three and six months only from June 2012 to between September and December 2012 before the athletes were provisionally suspended or withdrawn from competition.

Olga Kaniskina, the Olympic gold medallist in the 20 kilometres walk at Beijing 2008, was one of four Russians who paid money to avoid being banned for drugs, the IAAF claim ©Getty Images

The IAAF claim that two unnamed employees had raised concerns to Diack about delays in the process to sanction the athletes and that their work resulted in the process being sped up.

The employees are believed to be Huw Roberts, recently appointed by new IAAF President Sebastian Coe to be the organisation’s senior legal counsel.

The other is thought to be Thomas Capdevielle, an IAAF doping official who accompanied Coe when he appeared before Britain's Parliament in London last November.

IAAF distance-running official Sean Wallace-Jones is also believed to have raised the issue with Diack personally.

Diack, though, claimed he had not spoken to his son, Papa Massata, in years when the Briton went to the then-President after receiving a complaint of extortion from Shobukhova’s coach.

The IAAF claim that the four other athletes mentioned by WADA, including the case of London 2012 50km champion Sergey Kirdyapkin, were not affected by any payments, with their being no legal way for the process to have been completed quicker.

Kirdyapkin has not been stripped of his Olympic gold because he was given a three-year ban by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency starting in October 2012, which means it did not affect his performance in London.

The IAAF have appealed appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for this to be reassessed, including disqualifying him from London 2012.

Also mentioned by the IAAF in its response is Turkish athlete Asli Ҫakir-Alptekin, winner of the 1500m gold in London before being disqualified and banned from the sport for a second doping failure based on her ABP.

The IAAF regarded her APB readings as suspicious before the Olympics, it is claimed, but did not have full evidence to suspend her beforehand due to the findings being "inconclusive".

There enough time for full analysis before London 2012, they claim.

"These allegations of corruption by individuals formerly associated with the IAAF are truly abhorrent, and the IAAF cannot, and does not, seek to avoid or downplay them in any way," the IAAF claim in the report sent to WADA.

"The IAAF wishes to salute the courage of the whistle-blowers (including its own staff members) who have helped to expose the wrongdoing described in the IC Report.

"It will do everything in its power to punish the wrongdoers and to reform its own systems to make sure that no one can ever again interfere improperly with its anti-doping procedures."

Russia's Sergey Kirdyapkin won the Olympic gold medal in the 50 kilometres walk at London 2012, but his suspension was not delayed by corrupt payments, according to the IAAF ©Getty Images

The report is unlikely to convince the many who are sceptical about the IAAF but does reiterate how all the cases mentioned first arose due to IAAF testing,.

The governing body also point to the 76 Russian athletes have been sanctioned thanks to their anti-doping programme, including 33 through APB findings, as to how serious they take the problem of doping in the sport.

The publication of the IAAF statement comes ahead of the second part of the WADA Independent Commission Report being published in Munich on Thursday (January 14).

The IAAF Task Force and Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko are also due today to discuss the process to lift the world's largest country's suspension from athletics ahead of this year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

The IAAF report concludes: "As demonstrated above, there is no systemic corruption within the IAAF, but rather a dedicated staff with high ethical standards whose work has contributed greatly to the fight against doping in sport not only in athletics specifically, but also (through the support and assistance that the IAAF Medical & Anti-Doping Department has provided to WADA over the years) in the whole of sport generally.

"Stakeholders in athletics can therefore have confidence that the IAAF will continue to do, as it has done for the last 50 years, whatever is necessary to protect the integrity of the sport from the scourge of doping."

The full IAAF response can be read by clicking IAAF response to WADA IC Report.pdf

07 JAN 2016 PRESS RELEASE MONACO

Mo Farah: I want to be able to race against clean athletes

British star is looking forward to a fresh start and believes Seb Coe is the right man to clean up the sport

Mo Farah is in Edinburgh for his first cross country race for exactly five years Photo: PA

It is claimed that the former IAAF president and Wada has been paid to overlook athletes that have tested positive of performance enhancing drugs. The new IAAF president Seb Cole has helped suspend Russia and several Kenyan from the 2016 Olympics. Many other athletes have been suspended or are under investigation.

Senegal: Breaking News: Senegalese Gov’t Arrests Sen TV Boss, For Reporting On The £1m Russian Sports Doping Scandal, Which President Sall’s Party Allegedly Benefited From!

The administration of President Macky Sall of Senegal, has started arresting journalists, who are reporting on the latest corruption and bribery scandal, involving the country’s De Facto President Sall, who has been accused of receiving Over £1m campaign finance for his Presidency from the embattled Lamin Diack, a Senegalese native, linked to a Russian Doping Bribery scandal, the Freedom Newspaper can reveal. Lamine Diack makes astonishing claim that over £1m in Drug Doping bribes from Russia helped fund Senegalese President Macky Sall’s Election Campaign, the Daily Mail reported. The story was first reported by a French Newspaper, Le Monde, which quoted legal sources to expose the corruption scandal.

According to transcripts acquired by Le Monde, Diack has also admitted that the IAAF delayed the suspension of Russian athletes until after the 2013 World Championships — hosted by Moscow in August of that year — due to sponsorship negotiations with Russian TV channel RTR and Russian bank VTB. The WADA independent commission, led by Dick Pound, will issue a report on its investigation of IAAF corruption on January 14. Other key points of the article (which is written in French) include: It is not 100% clear whether Diack received the money from Balakhnichev.

In November 2011, Diack tasked his legal advisor Habib Cissé — who was already negotiating IAAF sponsorship contracts with Russian companies — with delivering a list of 23 Russian athletes with abnormal biological profiles to Balakhnichev. Over the next few months, Cissé made multiple trips to Russia, once returning from Moscow with 20,000 Euros.

• • Gabriel Dollé, former anti-doping director of the IAAF, admitted to French police that he agreed to slow down procedures in the doping case involving Russian marathoner Lilya Shobukhova after being told to do so during a January 2012 meeting with Diack and Cissé. Dollé was told that if he did not slow down proceedings, it would create bad publicity ahead of the 2012 Olympics, which would prejudice negotiations with Russian sponsors. Shobukhova ultimately competed in the 2012 Olympics in the marathon.

  • Dollé was also instructed to delay telling ARAF about other Russian doping positives/biological passport abnormalities and was paid at least 190,000 Euros to do so by Lamine Diack, his son Papa Massata Diack, and others.

  • Le Monde also reports that in a July 2013 email to his father, Papa Massata Diack wrote that Balakhnichev asked that Lamine take action after other IAAF administrators began to take notice of the delayed action on Russian athletes. According to Le Monde, Lamine Diack told French police that Sheikh Thiare (then the IAAF’s director of the office of the president), Nick Davies (IAAF press chief) and Pierre-Yves Garnier (then in charge of the biological passport) were offered bribes to keep quiet. Thiare and Davies denied these claims; Garnier did not respond to Le Monde‘s interview request.

MOSCOW -- The IAAF says it has banned Russian runner Tatyana Andrianova for doping in a case that is more than 10 years old.

Andrianova tested positive for the banned steroid stanozolol while competing in the 800 meters at the 2005 world championships in Finland, where she won bronze.

That medal is likely to pass to fourth-place finisher Maria Mutola of Mozambique.

Andrianova's ban comes at a time when Russia is suspended from athletics over accusations of running a state-sponsored doping program.

In August, the IAAF said it identified 28 athletes suspected of doping at the 2005 and 2007 worlds after retesting their samples using new technology.

The 28 have not been named, and it is not clear whether Andrianova is among them, or is a separate case.

ROME -- The Italian Olympic Committee requested two-year doping bans Wednesday for 26 track and field athletes -- several of whom are slated to compete at next year's Rio de Janeiro Games.

The list includes Fabrizio Donato, the bronze medalist in triple jump at the 2012 London Olympics, and Andrew Howe, the silver medalist in long jump at the 2007 world championships; distance runner Daniele Meucci; and sprinter Simone Collio.

All 26 are accused of evading doping tests but maintain there was an administrative error. They will face trials at CONI's anti-doping court, with decisions expected sometime next year.

"What I've been accused of is not a doping case but rather problems of availability for the Whereabouts system," hammer thrower Silvia Salis said, according to the ANSA news agency. "The only thing I can say is that the system had technical flaws."

Five of the 26 had already qualified for Rio while about 10 have retired, including pole vaulter Giuseppe Gibilisco.

Alex Schwazer, the gold medalist in 50-kilometer race walk at the 2008 Beijing Olympics who was banned previously, was among 39 athletes cleared in this case.

CONI acted following an investigation by prosecutors in Bolzano.

"Placing the blame only on the athletes for what happened is too simple," Italian Athletics Federation president Alfio Giomi said. "The athlete is the starting and finishing point for the entire movement but in between there are coaches, clubs, the federation and CONI. We all have to assume our responsibility."

---

26 referrals for athletes: for violation of art. 2.3. Of the CSA request for imposition of the sanction of disqualification of two years not to proceed to the complaint essentially in art Andrew Howe NCERTAIN Anna LALLI Andrea LA

ROSA Stefano LICCIARDELLO Claudio Daniele Meucci OBRIST Christian ERTILE Roger Riparelli Jacques SALIS Silvia 2.4 of the CSA;Roberto Bertolini CAMPIOLI Philip Simone Collio Roberto Donati Fabrizio Donato Faloci John GALVAN Matteo GIBILISCO Joseph GREEK Daniel

Ukraine bans three-time Osaka International Ladies Marathon champion for four years

Tetyana Shmyrko, a three-time winner of the Osaka International Ladies Marathon, has been suspended for four years by the Ukrainian Athletics Federation (UAF), it has been announced.

The 32-year-old has been banned following violations discovered in her athlete biological passport, which monitors an athletes' blood records over a period of time to see if there is anything suspicious about their profile.

The Executive Board of the UAF have announced that all of Shmyrko's results dating back to August 2011 will be expunged following the suspension.

That means she will lose the Osaka Marathon titles she won in 2013, 2014 and 2015, including her Ukrainian record performance of 2 hours 22min 09sec she had set winning this year's race.

The time was the ninth fastest by a woman this year.

Shmyrko's fifth place performance in the Olympic marathon at London 2012 will also be erased from the record books.

Results from the last three Osaka races will now be revised, including this year's race where Latvia's Jelena Prokopcuka will be promoted to the winner.

Japanese pair Yukiko Akaba and Kayoko Fukushi are set to move up to winners of the 2014 and 2013 races respectively.

Shmyrko's suspension is due to end on September 29, 2019.

Greek triple jumper Piyi Devetzi may lose Olympic medals over drugs test

The retired triple jumper Piyi Devetzi, 39, could be stripped of her Olympic silver and bronze medals after Greece’s track and field federation (Segas) said on Wednesday she had failed a doping test.

Dick Pound says second part of Wada doping report will be more explosive

Read more

“The international federation [the IAAF] informed Segas that Piyi Devetzi retested positive on a sample taken in 2007,” Segas said in a statement. “Following this development the federation has opened disciplinary proceedings against her.”

Devetzi retired in 2009 after the International Association of AthleticsFederations banned her for two years for refusing to undergo a doping test while she was training in Ukraine.

She won an Olympic silver medal in Athens in 2004 and a bronze in Beijing four years later.

Devetzi also claimed a world championship bronze in Osaka, Japan in 2007.

NAIROBI, November 27- Two-time IAAF World Cross champion, Emily Chebet Muge, has been banned for four years while six others including disgraced Beijing Worlds female sprinters; Joy Zakari and Francesca Koki Manunga have also been convicted for doping violations.

On a bombshell Friday night, Athletics Kenya (AK) announced stiff sanctions against seven runners with Chebet, earning the shameful distinction as the first Kenyan champion at a major global event to be banned for substance abuse in the decorated history of the nation.

Hours after Pope Francis left the country for Uganda following a three-day pastoral and State visit, the federation that has come under fire for alleged complicity in taming the doping menace of among the country’s runners struck with venom.

“Has been sanctioned for four (4) years effective 17th July 2015 to 16th July 2019 after being found guilty of using the prohibited substance Furosemide,” AK said in a press statement dispatched in the darkness of Friday night in relation to Chebet.

The latest bans push the figure of Kenyan runners banned for doping to 43, 40 among them being sanctioned from 2012 in a spike that brought out threats of international competition exclusion from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that continues to place the nation on its shortlist of countries whose control systems are wanting.

Besides Zakari and Koki who returned adverse findings at the summer IAAF World Championships in Beijing, tainting a strong showing where Kenya topped the globe for the first time ever, Agnes Jepkosgei Cheserek, Bernard Mwendia, Judy Jesire Kimuge and Lilian Moraa will also serve bans of two to four years.

-Chebet shocker-

The presence of Kericho born and bred Administration Police officer Chebet, 29, an A-list runner in the damned list caused the biggest ripples and further open scrutiny at the top echelons of the global distance running powerhouse.

Coming in the same year another famous female runner, Rita Jeptoo, who won Boston and Chicago marathons back-to-back in 2013 and 14 was banned for four years for EPO use, her bust is proof the menace is creeping at the apex of the sport.

In March, Chebet was in the Kenyan team for the 2015 IAAF Guiyang World Cross where her bid for a third women’s senior 8km individual title ended with a sixth place finish as teenager Agnes Jebet Tirop, 19, succeeded her.

She was however, part of the Kenyan team that won silver and her ban could erase that performance from record books as well as other impressive results at international road race and cross country meets in Europe and America.

Chebet soared to her first world title in Bydgoszcz, Poland in 2010 and after missing a defence in 2011 in Punta Umbria, Spain with injury; she returned to the middle step of the podium at the same Polish city in 2013, succeeding current world 10,000m champion, Vivian Cheruiyot.

Her last recorded race was in Albany, New York where she won the 5K race in 15:38 and word about her failed drug test gained currency at the August 1 Kenyan Trials for Beijing Worlds when she failed to compete.

Furosemide, sold under the brand name Lasix among others, is a medication used to treat fluid build-up due to heart failure, liver scarring, or kidney disease.[1] It may also be used for the treatment of high blood pressure.

According to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Diuretics such as Furosemide “increase urine volume and dilute any doping agents as well as their metabolites present in the urine and make their detection more problematic by conventional anti-doping analysis. For this reason, diuretics are classified as masking agents on the WADA Prohibited List (class S5: ‘Diuretics and other masking agents’) (WADA, 2009b).”

Chebet won the bronze in 10,000m at the 2006 and 2014 Africa Athletics Championships as well as silver and bronze at the 2014 and 12 editions of the CAA Africa Cross Country Championships.

After IAAF announced initial indefinite suspensions of women 400m runner, Zakari and women 400 Hurdler, Koki at the Beijing Worlds pertaining to out of competition tests at the team hotel, AK has now banned them for four years each.

“Francisca Koki Manunga – Has been sanctioned for four (4) years effective 25th August 2015 to 24th August 2019 after being found guilty of using the prohibited substance Furosemide.

“Joyce Sakari Nakumincha – Has been sanctioned for four (4) years effective 25th August 2015 to 24th August 2019 after being found guilty of using the prohibited substance Furosemide,” the federation wrote adding them to the list of the diuretic.

Zakari, 29, of Kenya Police Service set a 51.14 national record at the July 11 National Championships in Nairobi before her results in Heat 3 of the Worlds in Beijing were annulled following her expulsion from China.

She was part of the Kenyan 4X400m women’s relay quartet that won silver at the 2008 Africa Championships in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and took the wooden spoon during the heats of the lap race on her Olympics debut at London 2012.

Koki, 22, was part of the country’s 4X400m and 4X100m relay teams that finished fifth at both the heats of their competition in Glasgow, Scotland and her result at the heats of the 400m Hurdles heats were chalked off in Beijing.

Jepkosgei Cheserekn who finished third at the 2013 Stanchart Nairobi International Marathon; “Has been sanctioned for four (4) years effective 17th October 2015 to 16th October 2019 after being found guilty of using the prohibited substance Norandrosterone,” the federation stated.

Road runner Mwendia, with a half marathon PB of 63:45, “Has been sanctioned for four (2) years effective 16th November 2014 to 15th November 2016 after being found guilty of using the prohibited substance Norandrosterone.”

Jesire Kimuge, with a 1:06:11 lifetime best in half marathon, has virtually no CV to write about and will also serve a two-year ban for Norandrosterone effective 1st June 2014 to 30th May 2016.

Moraa Marita, another virtually unknown with 34:59 and 56:06 career bests in 10K and 15K distance received two years for EPO running from 15th August 2015 to 14th August 2017.

Norandrosterone and other 19‐norsteroid potent anabolic steroids have been prohibited in sports for 30 years. The detection of the main urinary metabolite—19‐norandrosterone—in amounts greater than 2 ng/ml constitutes an adverse analytical finding WADA says.

Erythropoietin (EPO) is a peptide hormone that is produced naturally by the human body. EPO is released from the kidneys and acts on the bone marrow to stimulate red blood cell production.

An increase in red blood cells improves the amount of oxygen that the blood can carry to the body’s muscles and has been banned since the early 1990s.

USATF President and IAAF Council Member Stephanie Hightower on the IAAF Council action to provisionally suspend the Russian Federation:

Council examined this matter very thoughtfully, fully aware of the extraordinary action we ultimately decided to take. The WADA report was clear in its evidence and unequivocal in its recommendations. From Council's perspective, in light of the evidence, suspension was the only proper course of action. The IAAF has an obligation to protect athletes, and this action sends a clear message to clean athletes that protecting them and protecting the sport, with a culture of accountability, is our top priority. It is my hope as a Council member that this process also will spur a review of the IAAF governance structure, and that we will act to implement WADA's recommendations of instituting an ombudsman and compliance officer. Although this is a difficult time, in the long term, the sport ultimately will be stronger for it.

Sebastian Coe resigns from Nike post amid storm of criticism

MONACO — Although new to his job, Sebastian Coe has already learned that some battles are simply not worth fighting when you're trying to lead a major sport out of crisis.

The head of track and field's governing body announced Thursday that he has given up his role as a special adviser to Nike. That relationship was longstanding, dating back to his years as a star middle-distance runner, and it was lucrative, reportedly worth 100,000 pounds ($150,000) to him each year.

But that link has become a millstone around Coe's neck since he was elected president of the International Association of Athletics Federations in August, because it left the former Olympic champion open to critics' accusations that he might put the interests of the sportswear giant before those of his sport.

Coe said Thursday that he still believes it is possible to be both a Nike ambassador and lead the IAAF without it being a conflict of interest. But he said he was giving up the Nike position because discussion about that role is distracting from his No. 1 mission: saving track and field from a crisis of confidence sparked by revelations of widespread doping in Russia, and alleged corruption at the very top of the IAAF under Coe's predecessor, Lamine Diack.

"It is clear that perception and reality have become horribly mangled," he said. "The current noise level about this ambassadorial role is not good for the IAAF and it is not good for Nike."

"Frankly," he added, "it is a distraction to the 18-hour days that I and our teams are working to steady the ship."

Coe's decision, which he said was taken in recent weeks, shows both a willingness to compromise and that he recognizes that the IAAF has bigger fish to fry at the moment than have to face questions about its president's outside business dealings and whether they could cloud his judgement.

Coe has multiple crises to deal with.

Russia, a track and field power, is currently suspended from international competition, possibly including next year's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, for allowing systematic, widespread doping.

French prosecutors are investigating allegations that Diack, his sons and others at the IAAF were involved in corruption and money-laundering and an alleged blackmail scheme that squeezed bribes from athletes in return for promises to hide their positive doping tests.

Ultimately, Coe's presidency will be judged on how effectively he puts out those and other fires. By recognizing that questions about Nike were distracting from his work, Coe signaled that he understands the need to put the interests of his sport first. He is also acknowledging that, in the long run, solving track's problems will be better for him than digging in his heels now for personal gain.

"I have stepped down from my ambassadorial role with Nike, which dates back 38 years," he announced at a news conference in Monaco, having first informed the IAAF's ruling council of his decision. "I felt that I needed to be able to focus unflinchingly on the challenges ahead."

Coe is still chairman of sports' marketing agency CSM that works in 19 countries. But he said the company, again to ward off any potential conflict of interest questions, has agreed not to work for the IAAF as long as he leads it.

His decision to take a financial hit immediately posed the follow-up question of whether the IAAF should start paying its presidents, so they don't have to get money from elsewhere.

Frankie Fredericks, an IAAF council member, said the athletes commission he heads would want the president to be paid, because athletes want professional leadership and "the best services they can get."

Football's governing body, FIFA, pays its president, but refuses to say how much. The head of the International Olympic Committee is a paid position, too.

In other business, the IAAF council discussed the doping crisis in Russia and gave a green light to setting up a new integrity unit. It will take the lead in combatting not just doping in track and field but also other forms of cheating, including fixing results and athletes lying about their age.

Earlier Thursday, Coe got a boost when Russia vowed to work "very actively" with the IAAF to eradicate the doping culture that led to its blanket ban from international competition. The decision by Russia's athletics federation not to contest the IAAF ban and its additional promise to work "very hard" to tackle doping represented a modest victory for Coe and suggests that his push to sanction Russia is producing early results.

To be reinstated, Russia will now have to clear numerous hurdles, not only sanctioning athletes and others who doped or were complicit in cheating and cover-ups but also carrying out a series of reforms. It will have to satisfy an IAAF inspection commission that it has ticked all the boxes required to be allowed back into the fold. The council meeting discussed those steps in general terms but more work is needed, in consultation with the World Anti-Doping Agency, to finalize exactly what they will be.

By accepting the IAAF suspension and waiving its right to a hearing, Russia signaled that it wants the process that could lead to its reinstatement to move forward quickly.

In a letter to the IAAF, the general secretary of the Russian athletics federation, Mikhail Butov, said: "We are working very hard now in Russia to change a lot."

"We will cooperate with (the) nominated commission very actively," Butov said. "I hope for a positive result after (a) certain time and (a) full come-back to the IAAF family."

UKA announces that the former coach of Bernice Wilson has been charged with committing anti-doping rule violations

Former UK Athletics-licensed coach George Skafidas has been provisionally suspended from participating in the sport, the national governing body announced on Monday (November 23).

The Greek, who coached former GB sprinter Bernice Wilson when she was banned for a drugs offence, has been charged by UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) with having committed anti-doping rule violations.

“The provisional suspension issued by UK Anti-Doping and in accordance with IAAF Anti-Doping Rules, came in to effect today,” read a statement released by UK Athletics (UKA) on Monday.

“The individual now has the opportunity to respond to the charges against him including the right to a full hearing of the case.”

UKAD confirmed the provisional suspension via the organisation’s official Twitter account, adding: “UKAD will not disclose any further details until due process, including any appeals, has been completed.”

Skafidas had held a UKA coach licence but on August 28, 2013, the federation confirmed that a case management group had decided to ban the Greek coach from holding any form of UKA license for five years.

UKA will not disclose the exact reason for that ban, only that one of the circumstances for withdrawal of a licence set out in condition 6.1 of the Coach Licence Terms and Conditions (found here) existed.

In 2011 Wilson was suspended for four years following her positive test for testosterone and clenbuterol. She appealed the decision, but it was upheld.

As AW reported at the time, when Wilson was asked at a UKAD hearing to state any substances that might have led to the adverse finding, she mentioned a “multi-vitamin” drink provided by Skafidas, which she understood he obtained from a supplier in Germany. As she was being represented by Skafidas at the hearing, the investigating panel pointed out the potential for a conflict of interest, but after an adjournment, the pair returned to clarify it was no part of her defence or mitigation to suggest the drink as a possible source of the illegal substances.

Read more at the AW website.

IAAF president Lord Coe is facing conflict of interest allegations after emails emerged suggesting he lobbied his predecessor over the hosting of the 2021 World Championships.

Eugene, USA, was given the event without a bidding process, despite interest from the Swedish city of Gothenburg.

A BBC investigation has uncovered emails which claim Coe - an ambassador for sports giant Nike and then vice-president of world athletics - "reached out" to Lamine Diack with his support for Eugene's bid.

The Oregon city, which lost out to Doha with a 2019 bid, is closely associated with Nike.

Leader of the Gothenburg bid at the time and former head of Interpol, Bjorn Eriksson, told the BBC that the conflict of interest allegations needed "an explanation".

When asked about the allegations, Coe told the BBC he "did not lobby anyone" over Eugene's bid, but "encouraged them to re-enter another bidding cycle as they had a strong bid".

The British former Olympic 1500m champion was elected as president of athletics' governing body in August. He received £63,000 from UK Sport to pay for his PR team as part of the election process and said the rest of his campaign was "privately funded".

Coe says that all of his interests were declared to the IAAF's ethics committee and that his views on all the bids for the 2019 World Athletics Championships and Eugene's 2021 bid "are all a matter of public record".

Senagalese Diack, 82, is being investigated over allegations he took payments for deferring sanctions against Russian drugs cheats.

After the World Anti-Doping Agency's (Wada) independent commission reportrecommended Russia's athletics federation be suspended from international competition, Coe said track and field faced a "long way back" from a "shameful situation" - but that he was "more determined than ever" to lead the sport.

The report's co-author Dick Pound will be publishing the second part of his report later this year, focusing on alleged IAAF corruption.

How was the 2021 decision made?

Coe had been on the IAAF evaluation commission which visited Doha, Eugene, and the other unsuccessful bidder for 2019, Barcelona.

After its disappointment, Track Town USA, the organisation behind the Eugene bid - which is closely associated with Nike - quickly turned its attention to 2021, and began lobbying the IAAF.

A report into the conduct of IAAF officials has a "wow factor", says Dick Pound - the man who helped compile it.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) commission investigation examined allegations of widespread doping in athletics and it led to Russia being provisionally banned from competition.

The second part of the report - held back because of a police investigation - focuses on claims against the IAAF.

"People will say how on earth could this happen," Pound said.

"When we release this information, there will be a wow factor," the commission chairman told the Independent.

"It is a betrayal of what people in charge of the sport should be doing."

The findings on athletics' governing body have not been released after a French police investigation began earlier this month into former IAAF presidentLamine Diack and former head of anti-doping Gabriel Dolle.

Diack is being investigated over allegations he took bribes to cover up positive drugs tests. He has resigned from his position as honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, but has yet to respond to the claims.

Pound said the part of his report focusing on allegations against the IAAF looked likely to be released in January.

"One fear is that if we issue it on the Friday before Christmas, for example, no one will notice it and we want to have the maximum impact and deterrent," he said.

All Russian athletes are currently banned from international competition until their country's athletics federation and anti-doping agency comply with IAAF rules.

Pound has shown little sympathy with the clean competitors who have been embroiled in the saga.

"I think those clean athletes have to pay the price of being part of a system that is fundamentally corrupt," the 73-year-old former Wada president said.

"There will unfortunately be collateral damage and that's tough love."

Athletics doping: Key questions answered following Wada report

Athletics has been shaken by the doping allegations contained in the World Anti-Doping Association's (Wada) independent report - but who is involved and what might it mean for the future of athletics?

What are the key findings?

• • Russia is alleged to have 'sabotaged' London 2012 through systemic doping: Many of Russia's athletes at London 2012 had suspicious doping profiles, including 800m champion Mariya Savinova.

  • Some athletes are alleged to have refused and avoided tests: Athletes refused to take doping tests, gave incorrect phone numbers to anti-doping officials, paid money to cover up positive tests and returned from doping bans early.

  • Some doctors, coaches and lab staff were in on the alleged cover-up:Doctors and coaches provided banned substances to athletes, coaches and team officials hindered and bullied anti-doping officials, and laboratory personnel destroyed samples and covered up positive tests.

  • And so too was the Russian government: The Russian security service FSB allegedly operated a "culture of intimidation" at the anti-doping labs, and it was "inconceivable" that Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko did not know what was going on.

  • The IAAF was 'inexplicably lax' in tackling the problem: Athletics' global governing body the International Association of Athletics Federations failed to deal with the problem until it was too late, delaying its investigation of individual cases so long that suspect athletes were allowed to compete in London.

  • Wada needs more money: The World Anti-Doping Agency's budget of $30m (£20m) a year is too small for it to be effective. It needs more investigators and more resources to increase its educational efforts.

  • Other countries could be cheating too: Report co-author Dick Pound said the revelations surrounding Russia were "just the tip of the iceberg". He alleged that Kenya "has a real problem with doping and has been very slow to acknowledge it".

  • Russia could be suspended from the 2016 Olympics: That is therecommendation of the Wada report, if Russia does not "volunteer to take remedial work". IAAF president Lord Coe says the governing body will wait for Russia's response before deciding on a sanction on Friday.

Damian Collins is a Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee member

The efforts of Vin Lananna, Track Town USA's chief, paid off and in April this year at an IAAF meeting in Beijing, Diack announced a surprise vote on whether to bypass a normal bidding process, and simply hand the 2021 games to Eugene.

Several IAAF council members have told the BBC that Diack made clear his support for Eugene, and urged his fellow members to follow suit. The secret vote was carried by 23-1, with one abstention.

A bid process did not take place when the Japanese city of Osaka was awarded the 2007 World Championships.

What was the reaction?

Eugene stages the Prefontaine Classic every year, part of the IAAF Diamond League

Eriksson, the then head of Swedish athletics who was in charge of Gothenburg's bid, told the BBC he had been personally assured by both Coe and Diack that it would get a chance to bid for 2021.

"The idea we don't even get the chance to deliver an offer, we don't get the chance to be judged," he said. "That makes me still furious."

Eriksson is now demanding answers over whether Coe himself played any role in the process.

Coe told the BBC he believed the 2021 games would only be awarded after a bidding process until the IAAF council meeting in April, at which Diack told its members to award the event to Eugene.

Lananna is on record as saying that neither Nike nor Coe had anything to do with the bidding process, other than Coe's right to vote on it as an IAAF member.

So what was in the email?

The BBC has obtained an internal Nike email that could throw doubt on that claim.

The email, dated 30 January 2015, is from Craig Masback, director of business affairs for Nike's Global Sports Marketing, to Lananna and Robert Fasulo, both from Track Town USA.

Masback was chief executive for USA Track and Field (USATF) for more than 10 years before joining Nike in 2008.

The email, titled '2021' and in which Coe is referred to as "Seb", reads: "I spoke with Seb this morning. We covered several topics but I asked specifically about 2021.

"He made clear his support for 2021 in Eugene but made equally clear he had reached out to Diack specifically on this topic and got a clear statement from Diack that 'I am not going to take any action at the April meeting (in Beijing) to choose a 2021 site'."

Yet it was at that April meeting of the IAAF's council that Diack announced the surprise vote on giving the championships directly to Eugene.

What happened next?

Other emails seen by the BBC reveal that Lananna made at least one trip to Europe to visit Diack a few weeks after this email was written.

And by 15 April 2015, Track Town USA's campaign had paid off.

"We got 24 hours' notice of this vote and it was made clear to us what Lamine wanted - he wanted Eugene to get these championships," an IAAF council member told the BBC. The decision was announced on 16 April.

'It smells and needs investigating'

Gothenburg last hosted the World Athletics Championships in 1995

The BBC showed the emails to Eriksson, who is also the former president of international police organisation Interpol.

"It doesn't look good. It doesn't good at all. I would very much [like to] hear the explanation for this," Eriksson said. "I've never seen it before.

"I would very much like to hear how could this be explained. It is a very good question to Sebastian Coe. What is this?"

Asked how he felt about the whole 2021 process, Eriksson said: "It smells and it has to be investigated. That's for the sport, for everybody involved."

Eriksson also cautioned Coe on his association with Nike, which is reported to be worth around £100,000 per year to the double Olympic gold medallist.

He said: "I'd say it doesn't help at all, I'd say it's a major problem."

Damian Collins is a Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee member

What about Nike's role in this?

While Nike is not an official IAAF sponsor, it could benefit from the games being held in Eugene.

Nike is a global superpower in athletics - particularly in the USA where it has a sponsorship deal with USATF until 2040 - but came in for criticism when it re-signed twice-banned American sprinter Justin Gatlin.

It is also the kit sponsor for the Russian athletics federation - the subject of a recent, damning report by a Wada independent commission.

And earlier this year, the elite Nike Oregon Project training camp and its coach Alberto Salazar was at the centre of doping allegations by BBC Panorama, which have been denied, but remain the subject of a US Anti-Doping Agency investigation.

Lord Coe's responses to the BBC

Q: Did you lobby the IAAF and/or Lamine Diack on behalf of Eugene 2021? If so, given your role with Nike and Nike's close association with Eugene and Track Town USA, what would you say to those who would consider this to be a conflict of interest?

A: No, I did not lobby anyone on behalf of the Eugene 2021 bid. After their narrow defeat for the 2019 Championships I encouraged them to re-enter another bidding cycle as they had a strong bid. My views on all the bids for the 2019 World Athletics Championships (including Eugene) are a matter of record as I was chair of the evaluation commission for those bids. All my interests were, and continue to be, fully declared to the IAAF ethics committee and listed at the House of Lords.

Q: Did you ever discuss the Eugene 2021 bid with any Nike employee, official or executives? If so, with whom, and when?

A: Not unless I was asked if Eugene should rebid to which I would have replied 'yes' given how close they came to winning and the strength of their bid. My views are all a matter of public record as the media covered this extensively at the time.

Q: Did you tell any Nike employee, official or executive in January 2015, that you were in favour of the IAAF World Championships coming to Eugene in 2021? If so, given your position at the IAAF, what would you say to those who would consider this advance statement of support to be a conflict of interest?

A: I have long believed we should have a World Championship for athletics in the USA given the strength and size of this market and have had discussions with US Track and Field, the USOC (United States Olympic Committee), and cities and states in the USA many times. It is up to those organisations to put forward the proposal of a city, not me.

Q: The BBC has been told by Swedish Athletics that it was assured by you personally, as well as by Lamine Diack, that the 2021 games would only be awarded after a bidding process. Did you say this? If so, how do you then explain what happened?

A: I would have done as that was my view right up to the council meeting in Beijing when president Diack told the council of 25 people there were political and financial considerations in terms of the way the funding package came together for Eugene that may not be present again and we should award 2021 to Eugene. The overwhelming majority of IAAF council members from all parts of the globe decided to take the world track and field championships into a market where we have never been before. The situation was unusual but not unprecedented. A bid process did not take place when Osaka was awarded the 2007 World Championships. The process for bidding is already being reviewed as part of a wide range of reforms currently being prepared.

Q: The BBC understands that a significant amount of public money, via UK Sport, was made available to you to help fund your presidential campaign. In light of the events at the IAAF, which some say stands accused of being "worse than Fifa", do you believe this was good value for money for the UK taxpayer? If so, why?

A: I am very grateful for UK Sport's assistance. It was offered to me, and to others, as part of UK Sport's role to promote the UK's sporting interests internationally by assisting with the appointment of individuals into key international roles. Two thirds of the campaign was privately funded.

Q: UK Sport has confirmed that it provided £63,000 worth of funding to pay for your PR team at Vero. Can you confirm how you funded the rest of the campaign? ie. travel and expenses?

A: Two-thirds of the campaign was privately funded.

NAIROBI, November 23- Operations at Athletics Kenya (AK) Riadha House headquarters were paralysed on Monday morning after the building was placed under siege by a group aligned to Professional Athletics Association of Kenya (PAAK).

The protestors led by the association’s Secretary General, Julius Ndegwa, stormed the premises shortly after 7:30am local time (+3GMT) and went round the offices asking federation staff to leave their offices.

They then commandeered the gate, refusing anyone to access the headquarters located along Nairobi’s Aerodrome Road with the group growing to around 50 by midday as they plastered their banners and placards on the gates.

Ndegwa said their main grievance was the spike in doping and alleged misappropriation of funds by federation president, Isaiah Kiplagat, and one of his Vice-Presidents; David Okeyo who are being investigated by CID and lately, world governing body IAAF Ethics Commission for allegedly siphoning over Sh70m from sponsors Nike.

“We are demanding for AK top officials to resign reason being they are under investigation and we believe they have been brought this country down in terms of athletics. Taxation has never reduced since they entered office.

“Our country is bigger that Kiplagat (Isaiah) and Okeyo (David) who I understand stole money from Nike and doping conspiracy. We as athletes have decided enough is enough for this corrupt people to stay in office,” Ndengwa underscored.

They are also pressing for PAAK to be given voting powers under a new AK Constitution whilst seeking recognition as the main body to manage athlete’s affairs.

“The AK constitution does not feature an athlete whether former or active and I believe we are going to burn it today (Monday) and amend a new one that is going to favour us. We are going to stay here until these things are addressed by the Kiplagat and Okeyo so we will sleep here because this is out time to get our freedom.

“We gave them a chance but they have done nothing and they are not ready to change. We have former athletes who are competent to take over,” Ndegwa who is an Administration police (AP) officer declared.

“We do not recognise this group. I don’t know who they are because I have not engaged them since I have been locked out. PAAK are not our members. We have called Government security agency to come and assist us in this because we don’t have the capacity. This has now become a security issue,” another AK vice-president, Lt. Gen (Rtd), Jack Tuwei, told Capital Sport with heavy security watching over the group that is camped at Riadha vowing they will not vacate the building until their demands are met.

Efforts by Tuwei and CEO, Isaac Mwangi to reach an agreement were thwarted after Ndegwa turned down their request of allowing them in to sit down with five of their members and hear their grievances.

AP officers from Lang’ata station were also barred from accessing the building as the AK officials and workers were locked out for more than nine hours.

“It’s very unfortunate because if anybody has any grievances this is not the way to do things. There are more civilized way of doing things which is to come and engage the authorities and discus.

“But to come and invade the office and lock out everybody, to me it’s not right. Changing the constitution is not an event it’s a process and everybody has the right to give an opinion so that it can be included when amending or making the constitution.

“At the moment we have discussed with the Executive Committee about the constitution on how we are going to go about it and we have even formed a committee who are continuing looking at it,” Tuwei told.

Commenting on doping, the vice chairman declared, “any information we have received about athletes who have failed dope test we have followed the procedure as per the World Anti-Doping Agency and IAAF regulations and we have cautioned and taken action up to the very end.

Speaking separately, federation CEO, Isaac Mwangi, said “We have not talked to them. We will listen to their grievances.”

Retired athletes among them women’s 400m hurdles national record holder, Rose Tata Muya Tata, former African record holder in 3000m, Justina Jepchirchir and Joshua Chelang’a joined the protestors in a demonstration that did not feature any world famous athlete.

Former world marathon record holder, Wilson Kipsang, who is PAAK’s chairman, did not turn up as expected by the protesters, with an AK National Executive meeting that was due to be held on Monday morning put off as the top brass converged behind the building together with staff.

Marta Dominguez crossing the line first in the 3,000m steeplechase at Berlin 2009

Spanish middle-distance runner Marta Dominguez has been stripped of her 2009 world steeplechase title and given a three-year doping ban.

Dominguez, 40, was accused of doping in 2013 when abnormalities were found in her blood passport dating back to 2009.

But the Spanish athletics federation, of which Dominguez had been a vice-president, cleared her in 2014.

However, that decision has now been reversed on appeal by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

The appeal came from the IAAF, the sport's governing body, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).

Dominguez claimed her anomalous readings were caused by a medical condition.

But Cas said that explanation was not "sufficient" to dissuade it from "scientific evidence" of an anti-doping violation presented by IAAF and Wada experts.

Dominguez's results between 5 August 2009 and 8 July 2013 have been disqualified, which means she loses her Berlin 2009 gold and 2010 European 3,000m steeplechase silver medal.

The athlete who came second to Dominguez in Berlin was Russia's Yuliya Zaripova, who is serving a two-and-a-half year ban for doping that is subject to another appeal.

Dominguez retains her 5,000m silver medals from the 2001 and 2003 World Championships.

She was acquitted in 2011 of distributing performance-enhancing drugs after being charged as part of Operation Galgo - an investigation into doping in Spanish athletics.

A Russian marathon runner has been disqualified and faces further sanctions after winning a race in Japan at a time when his country is under suspension from global athletics, the IAAF said on Tuesday.

Viktor Ugarov won the Kanazawa marathon on Sunday, two days after Russia wasprovisionally suspended from competition by the International Association of Athletics Federations following allegations of state-sponsored doping.

“The event organiser is disqualifying his record and no appearance or prize money will be paid,” the IAAF told the Associated Press, adding that it would write to the Russian federation seeking disciplinary proceedings against Ugarov.

Athletics governing body suspends Russia from all competitions

Read more

Ugarov’s winning time of two hours 17 minutes, 19 seconds was briefly listed on the IAAF website as a new personal best. The IAAF called the listing a “technical issue” and later removed it from the site.

The Russian athletics federation general secretary, Mikhail Butov, told AP that he had not heard that Ugarov had competed in Sunday’s race but said the case would be looked into.

“We couldn’t physically inform each athlete, so it’s probably more of a problem for the organisers who allowed the athlete to take part in the competition,” Butov said.

The Russian federation said on its website: “Athletes who break the suspension and those who compete abroad are in danger of sanctions from the ARAF, including suspension.”

In a separate case, the Japanese athletics federation said Russian Olympic bronze medalist Tatyana Arkhipova was prevented from taking part in Sunday’s Saitama marathon because of Russia’s suspension.

Under the terms of Russia’s ban, Russian athletes can only compete within Russia in domestic events until the suspension is lifted. Russian officials have promised reforms and said they want to be able to compete again within three months, in time for the world indoor track and field championships in Portland in March.

Also on Tuesday, a Russian Paralympic runner received a nine-month suspension after testing positive for a cannabis-related substance. The International Paralympic Committee said Alexander Zverev’s ban runs to 5 May.

Zverev won a silver medal in the 400m at the 2012 Paralympics in London. He competed in the T13 classification for partially sighted athletes.

Jeptoo urged to reveal doping secrets

17 November 2015, 15:40

Disgraced Kenyan woman marathoner Rita Jeptoo has been urged to break her silence by her former coach and reveal the people behind her failed dope test to save the country's future generation.

Italian Claudio Berardelli, who served as Jeptoo's coach since 2011, told major Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation on Tuesday that Jeptoo and her former training mate, Agatha Jeruto, who is also serving a four-year ban for similar drug offences, could help clean up the sport in the east African nation.

"It's a big mistake when they continue to keep quiet while they know who are behind their cases," Berardelli told the Nation.

"I convinced Jeptoo to come out, and in fact told her to get in touch with the media and tell her story but I don't know why she had a change of heart."

Two-time Boston marathon champion, Jeptoo became Kenya's first high-profile athlete to fail a test after being caught doping with the banned blood-boosting hormone EPO, and was subsequently suspended for two years.

Jeptoo has always denied doping and has challenged her suspension.

Berardelli, who announced the severing of his relationship with Jeptoo after her doping was revealed, said he had tried to convince the athletes to talk.

"I swear I have tried to have Jeptoo and Jeruto talk, but these athletes seem scared. We really need to find a way to have them talk and save this country," Berardelli said, according to the newspaper.

Over 30 Kenyan athletes have been suspended and five more banned since 2012 after testing positive for banned performance enhancing drugs.

Many in Kenya fear doping is rife among their top class athletes too – runners who have been the source of enormous national pride.

Kenya on Saturday, under scrutiny amid allegations of widespread doping in world athletics, on Saturday announced the immediate establishment of an anti-doping agency.

Defending Boston Marathon champion Rita Jeptoo has received a two-year ban from competition for failed drug tests, according to an announcement by Athletics Kenya on Friday.

The news follows a hearing held by Athletics Kenya two weeks ago and potentially places Jeptoo’s major marathon titles and records in jeopardy, including the course record (2 hours 18 minutes 57 seconds) she set at last year’s Boston Marathon. Jeptoo is a three-time Boston Marathon champion (2006, 2013, 2014) and a two-time Chicago Marathon winner (2013, 2014).

In a statement released Friday morning, the Boston Athletic Association said it “will now evaluate the effect of the results of that hearing and penalty on Ms. Jeptoo’s results at the Boston Marathon.” Additionally, the BAA plans to gather as much information as possible about Jeptoo’s drug violations.

“In fairness to everybody, we will want to know what the final facts are,” Tom Grilk, BAA executive director, told the Globe. “We will assess those against history. Are there facts that would support a review of her most recent victory? Are there facts that would support a review of her eligibility to be considered a course record-holder? Without having all of that, I can’t say what it will be. But we will be exhaustive in our review.”

At the same time, we are out to insure the integrity of the event, the sport, and to be fair to the people who compete fairly.”

Grilk added that he hopes the whole process, including potential appeals, comes to a conclusion soon. And that’s not just because he would like the matter closed before the 2015 Boston Marathon on April 20, but because “the longer these things drag on, the harder they are on everybody.”

Jeptoo’s claim on the 2013-14 World Marathon Majors title is in limbo, too.

The organizers of the World Marathon Majors series — which includes the Boston, Berlin, Chicago, London, New York City, and Tokyo marathons — also issued a statement Friday. They said that the women’s winner “will not be announced until the completion of due process by the [track and field governing body] IAAF and the outcome of any appeal by Jeptoo.”

No runner who violates international anti-doping rules can win the World Marathon Majors series.

Last September, a few weeks before she won her second Chicago Marathon, Jeptoo, 33, tested positive for the blood-booster EPO, which dramatically improves endurance. A “B” sample tested last December also came back positive. Jeptoo’s estranged husband, Noah Busienei, testified at the Athletics Kenya hearing this month. In the past, Busienei has stated that he believes his wife started doping in 2011 as she came back from a break in training due to childbirth.

Jeptoo’s two-year ban will be backdated to October 2014, prohibiting her from participation in next year’s Rio Olympics. Under the old World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules that govern positive tests registered in 2014, two years is the maximum punishment allowed for a first violation. As of Jan. 1, the new minimum penalty for a first-time offense is a four-year suspension. Jeptoo can appeal her two-year ban with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Shalane Flanagan, who competed against Jeptoo in Boston in 2013 and 2014, is certain the Kenyan took performance-enhancing drugs. Watching Jeptoo win the 2013 Chicago Marathon in 2:19:57 then jump around at the finish line, Flanagan became suspicious. Then, after learning Jeptoo closed the 2014 Boston Marathon with speed comparable to the men’s leaders, Flanagan said “something didn’t seem right.”

Reached by phone Friday, Flanagan said she also wonders about the legitimacy of the women’s results in the 2013 Boston Marathon. Still, the Olympian raised in Marblehead knows it’s difficult to rewrite history.

“It’s really hard to go back now and take her out of the record books, unless you have an actual positive test [that dates before the 2013 Boston or Chicago marathons],” said Flanagan. “So, I don’t really know how to deal with that. It’s really unfortunate . . . In my first Boston Marathon, I believe I should have been third place, not fourth place. But you can’t get those moments back.”

Flanagan would like to see Jeptoo and others caught doping face a lifetime ban. And she would like to see governing bodies “start penalizing the entourage that surrounds these athletes because it’s not just the athletes that are doping. They’re being supported by other people who are helping them attain the drugs.”

That said, Flanagan praised the efforts of the World Marathon Majors. She added that, “Even if Rita does come back and competes, I do not believe she will be invited back to any of the World Major Marathons.”

Meanwhile, the BAA and World Marathon Majors reiterated their commitment to keep the sport clean.

“Drugs and doping in our sport will not be tolerated, and we will work with our partners in the Abbott World Marathon Majors, as well as the IAAF and WADA, to assure the continued implementation and rigorous observance and oversight of the strictest of standards in order to keep our sport clean,” said Grilk as part of the BAA’s statement.

“We already have severe and defined penalties, but the Rita Jeptoo case has brought to light the need to work yet further in that regard to ensure our sport. We are deeply disappointed in the findings involving Rita Jeptoo, and we are committed to upholding the integrity and credibility of the Boston Marathon.”

Kenya and Ethiopia have long dominated international distance running.

In the Boston Marathon, Kenyans have won 11 of the last 15 women’s races and 19 of the last 24 men’s races.

Jeptoo is the highest profile Kenyan runner to be banned for doping and her case naturally raises suspicions about her compatriots.

Jeptoo’s positive test and punishment also comes as Kenya struggles with an increase in positive tests by its athletes.

According to reports, Athletics Kenya has banned or suspended more than 30 athletes over the past five years for performance-enhancing drug use. And WADA has asked Kenya to improve its drug-testing process.

Kenyan Edna Kiplagat, who could be upgraded to the World Marathon Majors winner, told the AP, “[Jeptoo’s] positive test has made it very difficult for us. We keep on being asked about doping every time we go to compete out there and I’m hoping that her punishment will make others stop engaging in this bad thing.”

“I hope the [ban] will deter Kenyan athletes to stop taking shortcuts. It will be a lesson for others. It’s unfortunate since nobody wants anyone to be banned. If you take something like EPO, which is injected as a professional athlete, it is obvious you know what you are putting in your body.”

Eight unidentified competitors at the recent All-Africa Games in Brazzaville have produced adverse analytical findings (AAFs), in spite of a doping control programme severely criticised as “ineffective from the start” by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent observer.

The athletes in question are said to comprise three weightlifters, two wrestlers and three track and field competitors.

However, no further information is at present available.

According to the independent observer’s report, “despite repeated attempts, the [independent observer] team has not received any information regarding these eight AAFs…

“We are unaware of the athlete’s name, whether he/she won a medal, etc.”

The 16-day event in the Republic of Congo’s capital city in September saw some 8,000 athletes from 54 nations compete in 20 sports.

Egypt topped the medals table with 78 golds.

The eight-page independent observer report paints a picture of a problem-plagued doping control operation that it describes as “chaotic and unorganised”.

In one extraordinary example of the shortcomings experienced, doping control officers (DCOs) actually staged a one-day strike on September 15, the day of the 20 kilometre walk races and a men’s football semi-final involving the host nation.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - A senior Kenyan athletics official has denied siphoning off cash from a sponsorship deal between U.S. sportswear manufacturer Nike and the East African nation famous for its middle and long distance runners.

Britain's Sunday Times and local Kenyan newspapers alleged Athletics Kenya (AK) vice president David Okeyo and two other senior federation officials made personal withdrawals from an AK account in which Nike deposited sponsorship money.

Kenyan police have questioned all three officials in relation to the withdrawals and on Sunday world governing body, The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), said it had referred Okeyo to its ethics committee.

Okeyo said in a statement there was "no embezzlement of funds" whatsoever on his part.

"The funds are fully accounted for by Athletics Kenya and approved by the Annual General Meeting having gone through auditing process," he said.

Okeyo added that the deal with Nike was transparent and denied any cash was missing.

"I have noted various stories that have run in the media and are trending in the social media on the Nike/Athletics Kenya contract. I wish to state that the said contract was above board and was executed with integrity," he said.

Okeyo said he was waiting for investigations to finish and did not wish to comment further in the media.

Police have said Okeyo and two other AK officials recorded statements with the Kenyan Directorate of Criminal Investigations over cash withdrawals by the three on various dates as far back as 2011.

The IAAF informed its Ethics Commission about accusations against Okeyo this weekend when the Sunday Times cited court documents from a whistle-blower. Kenyan media made near-identical allegations at the start of the year.

"The IAAF was not aware of the investigation into Mr Okeyo in Kenya and the information has immediately been passed on to the independent IAAF Ethics Commission," the IAAF said in a statement.

"As part of the root and branch governance reform project that (IAAF president) Sebastian Coe has announced there will be new processes introduced to ensure all persons appointed to IAAF Commissions and advisory groups in the future have been only duly vetted and declared as fit and proper persons to hold office."

AK denies doping coverup

Athletics Kenya,AK, has turned up the heat on Paul Kibet Simbolei, the alleged whistleblower coach, labelling him a scam who has been fleecing runners by issuing fake clearance letters.

AK President Isaiah Kiplagat has also denied doping cover-ups and bribery claims made by the coach.

Kibet, a former marathoner now turned trainer, has accused senior Athletics Kenya officials of receiving money from athletes in exchange of less severe doping bans.

He claimed he had been receiving death threats since he spoke on the doping syndicate in the reports carried by German Television ARD and British Newspaper Sunday Times.

Athletics Kenya Chief Executive officer Isaac Mwangi told sportsnewsarena.com that they were stunned by the allegations from a ‘conman’ who is being sought by AK for issuing fake clearance letters.

“His claims on AK officials are baseless. Infact we have been looking for him and a Mr.Derrick Mugirwa for running a parallel clearing agency after being alerted by Embassies and athletes,” alleged Mwangi.

“We have received letters from Embassies forged by the two of them clearing athletes seeking visas for races abroad. They have been forging Athletics Kenya letters and issuing to athletes as purported clearance letters from us.”

Athletes are required to have a mandatory clearance letter from AK before entering races abroad which is also part of the documentation they present to embassies when they are applying for visas.

Simbolei denies claims

Simbolei,36, who trains athletes at the Kamariny stadium in Iten has denied the allegations adding that he is now a wanted man over his ‘unpatriotic’ exposé.

“These days I have to operate secretly,” a visibly fearful Simbolei, told our reporter Emmanuel Sabuni from Iten on Sunday, as he nervously scanned his surroundings.

“I never did that. I have never done anything wrong to any athlete or any official. I only told the world how AK is rotten from the inside especially officials who take money from suspected doped athletes to give them a letter to go and compete out the country or run local races,” he said.

Simbolei said he has been reluctant to report his fears to the local police whom he believes have been compromised. He claimed that a friend who is a policeman had warned him of the plot following his unflattering revelations.

“My friend in the police informed me of the plot to kill me and warned me against going to train at Kamariny on a particular day. On that day four plain-cloth police officers were spotted at the training grounds and were asking around for me,” claimed Simbolei as he repeated what he had told the investigative journalists.

“If an athlete is accused of doping, instead of AK banning the athlete, they clear him or her for competitions and get a cut from his earnings. If she is a lady, they can claim she used family planning drugs and if he is a man, they use dubious means to ensure that he competes as long as he gets them their share of his race earnings.”

Coverups impossible,Kiplagat

An accusation that AK president Isaiah Kiplagat denied arguing it was not logically possible to manipulate results that are tested out of the country at neutral centers.

“We send all samples from our local events abroad for testing at an authorized laboratory for lack of a testing center here in the country. Once the results are out they are sent to us, IAAF and the athlete is informed. So how can we alter or cover up results from an overseas testing center?” posed Kiplagat.

“The sanctions are clearly stipulated for each doping offence so the question of leniency is not possible. It is even harder to monitor the out of competition tests because sometimes we are not even aware when they are done and only know when we receive the results.”

Kiplagat said he welcomed the cabinet approval of fast tracking of the establishment of the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya, ADAK, as AK seeks to streamline the rising doping cases as recommended by the World Anti Doping Agency.

In a meeting convened last Friday at State House Nairobi the Cabinet set out the objectives of the Anti Doping Agency and spelt out its mandate which will include doping control in the country, promote the integrity of drug-free sports in the country and also prosecution.

To date about 34 runners have failed tests and have been sanctioned for doping violations,including former Chicago and Boston winner Rita Jeptoo who is currently serving a ban for EPO.

AK apologises to Wilson Kipsang

At the same time Athletics Kenya has apologized to former world marathon record holder Wilson Kipsang, for publishing his missed out of competition test last November.

The 2015 London marathon runner up had accused AK of malicious intent of quieting him as the chairman of the then vocal Professional Athletics Association of Kenya, PAAK by publishing what had already been recorded by the IAAF as a missed test. PAAK had been at the forefront of calling for change of guard at Riadha House amidst rising positive cases amongst Kenyan athletes.

An athlete is sanctioned once he/she has missed three out-of-competition drug tests.

“The Panel of the IAAF Ethics Commission has since determined that whereas Athletics Kenya had no malicious intent in publishing the said information, the publication nonetheless was in violation of AK's confidentiality obligation under Article C7 of the IAAF Code of Ethics which prohibits persons’ subject to the Code from at any time disclosing information entrusted to them in confidence.

"In view of the foregoing, Athletics Kenya hereby tenders an unequivocal apology to Mr. Wilson Kipsang Kiprotich for the said publication,” read the brief statement from AKv.

• • I.