Senator presses agency for answers on Russian doping scandal

All-Russia Athletics Federation general secretary Mikhail Butov says the absence of star Russians like pole vault world-record holder Yelena Isinbayeva and world 110-meter champion Sergei Shubenkov will hit the International Olympic Committee in the pocket.

Outspoken Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said the IAAF should be “dissolved” and accused athletics’ governing body of failing to take “responsibility” for doping that is roiling the sport.

Russian Federation was suspended by the IAAF in November, and the ban was upheld on Friday in a vote which appeared to have the backing of the International Olympic Committee.

“The Russian Para-athletics team train as part of the Russian Paralympic Committee and have no association with the ARAF”, said the IPC statement.

But this optimism ignored the legal strength of the IAAF’s carefully constructed decision and the erosion of support for Russian Federation at the International Olympic Committee as fresh doping scandals have emerged.

The Russian track federation is considering an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the IAAF ruling.

Reedie noted “a wave of new troubling allegations” about doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, including the systemic manipulation of urine and blood samples.

At a conference on Monday, WADA President Craig Reedie said it has “started inquiries into the suggestion of doping” by Russian and Chinese swimmers in conjunction with FINA. If it shows evidence of widespread state-run cheating across many sports, the British official said it would be a moment for a “precedent-setting opportunity”. Exceptions may be made only for the athletes, who manage to prove they are not involved in the Russian anti-doping system.

Reedie, pressed on what he meant by “precedent-setting action”, added: “WADA does not have the power to determine which sports do what”.

Reedie added that 0.5 percent of the worldwide sports television rights market would produce a WADA budget of $175 million and that it was in the rights-holders’ interest to promote clean sport.

Last Friday in Vienna, the IAAF task force leader Rune Andersen said McLaren had already found evidence that Russian samples were being “filtered” in the build-up to the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, so that only clean samples would be tested.

Russian President Vladmir Putin has labelled the IAAF’s ban on his country’s athletes as “unjust and unfair”.