Athletes have changed the sanctions regime

Athletes have changed the sanctions regime


The Council of the International Athletics Federation (World Athletics, WA) reinstated the All-Russian Federation of Athletics (ARAF), which had been under sanctions for more than seven years due to doping violations. In a different situation, this could mean that Russian athletes will finally be able to compete in international tournaments without any restrictions. But that won't happen. WA President Sebastian Coe, announcing the restoration of the ARAF status, immediately added that the Russians were still forbidden to enter international tournaments due to the events in Ukraine. Within a few weeks, WA, according to Mr. Coe, will formulate the terms for lifting this ban as well.

On Thursday, the Council of the International Federation of Athletics He has made a decision on the restoration of the status of the ARAF, which remained under sanctions since the fall of 2015. This was announced by WA President Sebastian Coe. However, he immediately made a remark that largely crossed out the entire positive effect of the completion of the Russian athletics doping saga. “The Council has agreed to reinstate the ARAF after a seven-year suspension,” Mr. Coe said at a press conference after the WA Council meeting. “However, athletes, officials and personnel from Russia and Belarus are still suspended from competition for the foreseeable future due to events in Ukraine.”

The federation also noted that they would continue monitoring the activities of the ARAF over the next three years.

ARAF President Petr Ivanov, in turn, in the official Telegram channel federation said that "the many years of work that we have been doing to return to the World Athletics Association has been completed", and "the complex, painstaking work to restore our status has been positively appreciated." “ARAF employees and members of the Presidium, our athletes, coaches, regional federations and everyone who cares about the fate of Russian athletics took part in the work,” he said. “We will continue to pursue a tough anti-doping policy in order to meet all international requirements. The issues of the sports and anti-doping component of the work of the federation comply with international requirements, which is enshrined today by the decisions of the World Athletics Council.”

How long the suspension of the ARAF will last on the grounds indicated by Sebastian Coe is unclear. He himself only explained that until WA changes its position, the participation of Russian athletes in the qualification for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris is out of the question. Obviously, WA does not share the recently discussed idea of ​​allowing Russian athletes (the vast majority of international sports federations followed the IOC recommendation and removed Russians from international tournaments after the start of events in Ukraine) to qualify for Paris 2024 through Asian qualification tournaments. “The right to decide on admission belongs to the international federations, so decided the Court of Arbitration for Sport. We determine who can be admitted to World Athletics tournaments,” said Sebastian Coe. However, he added that some criteria for lifting the ban will still appear. But it will take WA several weeks to formulate them.

However, nothing good can be expected from the recovery criteria promised by WA. Earlier, Mr. Coe warned that only the completion of a special military operation in Ukraine could force his organization to soften its position.

The latest decision of the WA Council was not unexpected. Moreover, it was actually announced back in December last year. Then the head of the working group created by WA to monitor the activities of the ARAF, Rune Andersen (the group, according to the decision of the WA Council, has now completed its work and has already been dissolved), said that he would recommend to the Council to restore the status of the ARAF. Explaining why the group, which refused to make such a recommendation a dozen times, changed its mind, Mr. Andersen pointed out that ARAF was able to "introduce a new culture of good governance and zero tolerance for doping", and also became "transparent". “Transparency” is expressed both in the wide coverage of the activities of the ARAF, including in social networks, and in the change in its rhetoric. Rune Andersen's group noted that instead of the traditional versions of an "international conspiracy", the victims of which allegedly become Russian athletes caught doping, the federation "freely admits or rejects fraud on their part."

The doping story in the VFLA began after the film by Hajo Seppelt “Secret Doping - How Champions Are Made in Russia” was released on the ARD TV channel in December 2014, in which athlete Yulia Stepanova and her husband, a former employee of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) Vitaly Stepanov , said that the heads of Russian sports and anti-doping structures help falsify test results for a fee. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) set up a commission headed by Dick Pound tasked with investigating these allegations. In November 2015, Dick Pound presented a report in which he argued that the use of doping in Russia was put on a state footing. WADA withdrew the accreditation of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, and WA disqualified the ARAF. In the same month, Grigory Rodchenkov, the former head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, fled to the United States. His statements formed the basis of a more global Russian doping case, because of which the Russian team has competed at all the Olympics since 2018. under a neutral flag.

Russian athletes all this time were forced to perform at all international competitions in a neutral status and a greatly truncated composition, and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro were generally missed. There was also a serious risk of missing the Tokyo 2020 Games as the crisis escalated due to high jumper Danil Lysenko's doping fraud and delays in the payment of the fine imposed by WA. The Russian team, which had not competed for several months, nevertheless flew to Japan, but it was represented by only ten athletes.

Alexander Petrov



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