IAAF President Sebastian Coe said that trust in the sport may not return until "way beyond" his four-year term, according to Toby Davis of REUTERS. WADA said in a second part of a "damning report" on Thursday that "corruption was embedded" at the IAAF. Coe, who came out from the report relatively unscathed, said "Trust is not going to come over night, it is not as if you make five changes and trust will follow in two weeks' time. It may be the case that trust does not return until way beyond my term in office." He said that he "understood that people would be skeptical that the IAAF's council, of which he had been a member since 2003, did not know about doping cover-ups, and added that his own focus had been 'limited' due to his other commitments." He said, "For 10 or 11 years, I was extremely busy in bidding or delivering a London Games. I didn't have the advantage of having a single focus on athletics. ... With all due respect, when corrupt behavior takes place it's rare for that to be shared with co workers" (REUTERS, 1/17). The BBC reported Independent Report author Dick Pound said that some athletes from Russia and Turkey "who failed drugs tests then paid bribes." Coe said, "If there are athletes out there and they think they have been subject to extortion, come and speak to me. We need to understand how far and how wide this thing goes. If it's the tip of the iceberg, then come forward and make those claims" (BBC, 1/17).
2017 CHAMPIONSHIPS BRIBES: The PA reported Coe has "promised to investigate claims of bribery in the bidding process for the 2017 world championships in London." The city was named in '11 as host for the championships "after beating" the challenge of Qatari capital Doha. UK Athletics Chair Ed Warner insisted "London had nothing to hide." However, Warner revealed that his team had agreed to spend $7.2M to cover prize money having been warned they were unlikely to succeed if they did not, and that they were told "brown envelopes" were being handed to members of the IAAF council. Warner said, "Very specifically, on the morning of the bid, council members of the IAAF and senior people at the IAAF were telling us that we were behind, and we were behind because the Qataris had promised to pay the $7.2 million prize fund for the athlete prize money which otherwise the IAAF itself would have to pay. They were saying to us, 'Look, you have got to match that offer.' We had the room within our budget, it was something we had up our sleeve" (PA, 1/17).
GERMANY WANTS MEETING: REUTERS' Karolos Grohmann reported Germany's athletics chief called for an "extraordinary meeting of the IAAF" after the second part of a WADA report "heaped more pressure on the sport's scandal-hit governing body." German Athletics (DLV) CEO Clemens Prokop made the call for the extraordinary meeting on Friday and "later issued a revised statement" backing current IAAF President Coe. The revised statement said, "The corruption allegations against the former IAAF leadership are so damning and have shaken the credibility of the IAAF so much that a signal of a new start should come from an extraordinary assembly of all members to show their support for Sebastian Coe's reform program. As well as the desire for an extraordinary IAAF Congress, the DLV is fully supporting the president in dealing with the corruption scandals" (REUTERS, 1/15).
