Russia suspended from track competitions over doping revelations

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After revelations of rampant cheating in track and field, Russia has been suspended from international track competitions and lost the rights to host two championships next year.

The ban – a near-unanimous vote by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) late Friday – would include track at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but it's widely expected that Russia will sufficiently rehabilitate itself and its anti-doping infrastructure to have the ban rescinded in time for the Games.

"We will get the change we want and only then will Russian athletes be able to return to international competition," said IAAF boss Sebastian Coe outside his office in London on Friday night, speaking with journalists in comments broadcast by BBC.

Coe became president of the IAAF in the summer and is only the sixth leader in the century-plus history of the organization, one that has itself been criticized and whose former boss, Lamine Diack, is under criminal investigation for bribe taking and doping cover-ups.

The Russian doping revelations are "shameful," said Coe as he hinted at major changes to come, inside track and in sport in general.

"The whole system has failed the athletes, not just in Russia, but around the world," Coe said in an IAAF press release.

Russia's response has evolved through the week. When the story broke on Monday, officials angrily denied the allegations and claimed the world was picking on Russia. But as the week went on, with President Vladimir Putin speaking on Wednesday about doing everything "to rid ourselves of this problem," the tone shifted.

"Let's do this together," Vitaly Mutko, Russia's sports minister, told R-Sport on Friday. "We're ready to do whatever it takes." Mutko insisted Russia isn't alone, that doping is common elsewhere, and added he is "completely sure" his country will be on the track in Rio.

Last December, a documentary on German's public broadcaster ARD aired allegations of widespread drug-taking in Russian track, a system supported by senior sport officials, the country's anti-doping lab and anti-doping leadership, as well as the state. The findings were corroborated in a nearly year-long investigation by a commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Canadians Dick Pound and Richard McLaren were two of the investigators. Their report landed like a bomb on Monday, and on Tuesday WADA suspended the tainted Moscow lab at the heart of the investigation.

WADA's foundation board meets next Wednesday, when it is expected to suspend Russia's Anti-Doping Agency as a whole.

The IAAF ban of the All-Russia Athletic Federation is provisional for now, the stiffest punishment that could be levied at Friday's emergency meeting. The vote was 22-1 in favour, among members of the IAAF council. The dissenting vote was not revealed. Russia, which has one member, was not allowed to vote. Canada is represented by Abby Hoffman, an accomplished middle-distance runner who was Canada's flag-bearer at the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics and has been an outspoken advocate for a tougher attack on doping.

Russia, the IAAF suggested, is expected to accept a full suspension.

The bigger effort, however, is aimed at fixing the problems. The IAAF will compile a list of criteria that must be fulfilled for Russia to regain membership. An inspection team from the IAAF is being created, one that will include an anti-doping expert from Norway.

Russia could overhaul its failed systems in four months, McLaren estimated in an interview with The Globe and Mail this week. "Where there's a will and the money, there's a way," he said.

Regardless of how quickly Russia regains the right to send athletes to international competitions, the scandal has cost the country its place as host of the 2016 World Junior Championships in July in Kazan, a city about 800 kilometres east of Moscow, and the 2016 World Race Walking Cup, scheduled for May in Cheboksary, near Kazan.

In London on Friday night, Coe was pressed whether he was the man to oversee changes. As an IAAF vice-president since 2007, he has been a senior leader in the years covered by this scandal.

"I'm entirely focused on the changes that need to be made," Coe told journalists. "We have conceded and I openly concede that we need to learn some very, very tough lessons. This is a wake-up call for all of us. We need to look at ourselves, within our sport, my organization as well, and we will do that."