Frankfurt: There will be no quick return for Russia to the international athletics stage — and certainly not for the world championships in August in London.
That emerged from an IAAF Council meeting in London on Thursday, when its president, Sebastian Coe, said the country had made “little progress” in dealing with its doping problem.
“We will continue to be tough. There is no timeline here,” Coe told a news conference on Thursday evening. “We will look again in July and make a judgement, but we are going to see this through — this is non-negotiable.”
The international federation’s task force, which is overseeing development in Russia, referred in its latest report to the IAAF Council of numerous shortcomings.
According to task force member Geoff Gardener, the targets of six milestones for Russian athletics federation RUSAF’s reinstatement following its ban ahead of last year’s Rio Olympics have not yet been fulfilled.
The milestones which the task force presented to the Council at its last meeting on February 6 are still outstanding “and at present it does not look like they will be met any time soon,” an IAAF statement said.
Coe said there were problems around the number of doping tests being carried out and with athlete’s biological passport records being withheld from testers.
Furthermore coaches tainted in the doping system were still working, while some athletes were training in “closed cities” without access for doping controllers.
Task force chairman Rune Anderson also criticised the appointment of Olympic and world champion former pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva as head of the country’s anti-doping operation.
Isinbayeva has been an outspoken critic of the IAAF ban on Russian athletes.
— dpa
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