Lasitskene and Sidorova were reminded of the Valieva case: the ban on Russian athletics has been extended

It is impossible to return Russia, although it would already be possible. Approximately so it is possible to formulate the conclusions that the World Athletics Council made, once again not restoring the membership of the All-Russian Athletics Federation. And now a new date has been named for considering the fate of our athletes, who have been limited to participating in international competitions in a neutral status for seven years: March 2023. Already progress.

A press conference was held in Rome, at which Sebastian Coe and the head of the working group for the restoration of the ARAF, Rune Andersen, spoke. “The working group reported that there is progress on recovery. The final recommendation will be made in March 2023, and it will consist of a recommendation to restore the status of the ARAF,” said Sebastian Coe, head of the World Athletics Association. March is a new beacon for our athletics.

And in March 2022, the same council decided to suspend Russian and Belarusian athletes (as well as support staff and officials) from international competitions due to the events in Ukraine until further notice. But he emphasized that the recovery working group will continue to monitor and oversee the actions of the ARAF to fulfill the recovery conditions. And in the last report presented at the council meeting, the working group just reminded that its “review of the progress of the recovery plan has nothing to do with any decision of the council on ARAF arising from the situation in Ukraine.”

The suspension of the ARAF has been extended many times, the figure is approaching the end of the second ten. ARAF was stripped of its membership in the international federation in November 2015. Seven years have not passed, but athletes have suffered every day, deprived of the usual rights for athletes around the world: to represent the country, enter the sector and compete where they see fit, and when they see fit.

Today, the ARAF and its path towards the implementation of the “road map” were praised in the report. RUSADA was praised at the same time. “Testing of Russian athletes was complete and effective, and we have confidence that at the operational level, RUSADA is doing well.”

By fulfilling the conditions of the road map, the working group was, as the report says, “inspired.” And she even noted that the ARAF took certain important steps on its own initiative, that is, those that were not in terms of recovery. For example, ARAF posted on its website a ranking of regions, “the transparency of which has created healthy competition between regions in the implementation of sustainable changes.” To take another example, ARAF worked with the Ministry of Sports to ensure that state-sponsored athletes were penalized for any single whereabouts violation, while penalties followed three times.

The Working Group also noted that RUSADA today receives more information from representatives of athletics reporting violations than from other sports in Russia. Moreover, the number of such reports is proportional to what WADA, AIU and others receive from their hotlines.

Everything in the report for the VFLA is not bad. But for some time now, representatives of power structures that can influence the fate of Russian athletes have come into fashion with a new expression: we are not naive. Recently, WADA President Vitold Banka spoke about this (we are not naive, “there is no direct faith in the Russian side”). Now also WA: “However, the working group is not naive.” Why? Because it acknowledges that large-scale and sustainable cultural change will “probably take many years to implement, and regions and stakeholders will inevitably move at different paces and with varying degrees of support for these changes.”

And the ARAF, as the report says, “is still under the supervision and control of the Russian government.” These conclusions are followed by the “concern” of the working group about the decision of the RUSADA disciplinary commission not to publish its findings in the case of figure skater Kamila Valieva. And this “indicates that not all elements of the internal anti-doping system work as reliably and independently as they should.”

What else? Once the ARAF is reinstated, one member of the Independent Anti-Doping in Athletics (AIU) will continue to work for the ARAF, and another AIU representative will oversee the ARAF’s compliance with post-recovery conditions from its office in Monaco. That is, supervision will be carried out on an ongoing basis.

And any violation of the terms of the post-restoration may lead to the exclusion of the ARAF from World Athletics forever. Moreover, the working group recommends that the council take this decision in order to “guarantee that no one will be tempted to interfere” in the activities of the ARAF.

And, of course, ARAF needs to maintain “current progress at the same level and pay the costs associated with the working group in a timely manner.” By the way, the VFLA paid the last bill for 230-something thousand dollars in October.

Restrained optimism in the issue of restoring the rights of our athletics, which Irina Privalova, acting president of the VFLA, has recently spoken about, still remains so. But how many steps remain to be taken before a positive decision is made (although I would like to believe that, according to Privalova, there is only a “small step”), it is probably impossible to say. It’s good at least that a specific date for the next discussion has been named. But there are still a few months ahead.

Athletics suffer not only for their sins. There are still problems with the restoration of RUSADA (suspension until December 16, 2022), and WADA, judging by the statements of its president, does not at all intend to solve them quickly and in favor of Russia. Moreover, the nod in the report towards the case of Kamila Valieva, which has nothing to do with athletics, is alarming.

There are also sanctions for all Russian sports. Answering the last question during a press conference, Sebastian Coe said: “The cause of the restoration of the ARAF is moving in the right direction. The final recommendation will be made to the council in March and it will be a matter of re-establishing the national federation. But you are right that the progress of the ARAF has nothing to do with the decision of the council on its status, which arose in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. These are very different things, we need to continue to monitor this situation.”