BERLIN: The ethics board of world athletics governing body IAAF on Wednesday extended the suspensions of three staff members being investigated as part of an alleged cover-up of Russian doping cases. Nick Davies, Jane Boulter-Davies and Pierre-Yves Garnier were provisionally suspended for 180 days by the board in June, pending an investigation of potential ethics breaches. That has now been extended to January 31, 2017, rather than allowed to expire. The ethics board originally said the suspension stems from an email reportedly sent on July 29, 2013, to then IAAF President Lamine Diack from his son, Papa Massata Diack, who was a marketing consultant of the IAAF at the time, which showed the trio were aware of payments made to suppress doping cases.
Davies stepped down as bureau chief of current IAAF president Sebastian Coe in December 2015 but was suspended along with his wife, Boulter-Davies, who was in the IAAF anti-doping department. Garnieris the IAAF medical manager. “Each of the three individuals continue to enjoy the presumption of innocence and the extension of the orders for provisional suspension should not be interpreted as any departure from the principle that each individual is to be considered innocent until the conclusion of the disciplinary investigative process,” the ethics board said in a statement. The affair has to do with the alleged delaying of proceedings against Russian athletes who had failed doping tests.
Papa Massata Diack has since been banned for life, Lamine Diack has been disgraced, and the Russian federation suspended by the IAAF. A World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) committee said in January the two Diacks were suspected of bribery and money-laundering in connection with cover-ups of positive doping tests of mainly Russian athletes. French prosecutors are also investigating these allegations.Senegal’s Lamine Diack was IAAF president from 1999-2015. He was also a member of the International Olympic Committee and resigned as honorary IOC member once the affair broke last autumn. — DPA
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