The global Association of Athletics Federations should have been ‘more

IAAF Council members voted 22-1 in favour of Russia being provisionally suspended, with the Council meeting coming after a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Independent Commission report published last week detailed findings including a “deeply rooted culture of cheating” in Russian athletics.

Bach offered his full backing to IAAF President Sebastian Coe, who has faced criticism for contending he was not aware of the Russian doping situation when he was a vice president under Diack.

However, the IAAF action fell short of stating explicitly that Russian athletes would be barred from the Olympics, raising the prospect that they would be allowed to compete after all.

“All doped athletes will be sanctioned….”O’Connell said elite Kenyan runners – who topped the table at the world championships in Beijing in August with seven gold medals – were concerned their reputations were being tarnished by an global doping scandal and a spate of failed tests by Kenyan athletes”.

The decision to suspend Russian Federation, Coe said, was made amid an atmosphere of “sadness and anger” and “the recognition that unless we fully grasp the enormity of our plight there were unlikely to be many tomorrows for athletics”. “This is the first and only priority right now for the IAAF and for Russian Federation”.

“We understand that the publication of the second part of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) report will deal a serious blow to the IAAF”.

The IAAF on Friday handed the Russian athletics federation a provisional suspension, sparking indignation among the country’s brightest track and field stars.

“The corruption in Russian Athletics deserves no less”.

Secretary General of the Russian Athletics Federation Mikhail Butov, stated that moving forward, he intends to restore the Russian athletes’ reputation as well as put them back in the Rio Olympic games.

The WADA Independent Commission was set up and began its work earlier, following a series of German documentaries on the alleged mass use of performance enhancing drugs among Russia’s field and track athletes.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced in June his deep disappointment with the rise of positive doping cases registered among Russian athletes and urged to enhance the fight against the abuse of performance enhancing drugs.