Russia "could be forced to repay millions of pounds of prize money before its ban from world athletics is lifted," according to Ben Rumsby of the London TELEGRAPH.
A two-day meeting of the IAAF council "will on Friday hear from the task force established to monitor the country during its suspension, which will deliver its first report on the matter." The council "is also expected to discuss making one of the conditions of Russia’s re-entry to the sport the repayment of all the prize money won by its banned athletes since 2009, with a view to redistributing it among those who finished behind Russian drugs cheats in various events."
The move "follows a campaign spearheaded by Paula Radcliffe, the marathon world record holder and new vice-chair of the IAAF’s athletes’ commission, which this week saw a petition launched that -- as of noon -- had attracted support from more than 100 leading athletes across the world." Radcliffe, who was herself cleared of doping last year after appearing on a list of athletes to have produced "suspicious" blood values, said, "I back the idea that, at the very least, all stolen prize money should be repaid before those banned can return to our sport" (TELEGRAPH, 3/10). The BBC reported Kenya's Edna Kiplagat, the '11 and '13 world marathon champion, and Germany's Irina Mikitenko, who won the London Marathon in '08, "have also signed it." London Marathon CEO Nick Bitel said,
"It's an extremely good idea. There are many, many athletes around the world who've been affected. To try to leave it up to individual athletes and individual events to sue the Russian athletes who doped, that is just not practical" (BBC, 3/10).
GREEN LIGHT: REUTERS' Karolos Grohmann wrote the German government "has given the green light for the creation of a second fund to pay compensation to athletes from the former East Germany whose health was damaged by a secretive state-supported doping program." An estimated 8,000-9,000 athletes were on the doping program from '72-89, "the overwhelming majority without their knowledge."
The government said that "it had approved the drafting of a law" for a one-off payment of €10,500 ($11,500) per eligible doping victim and expected several times more cases than the 194 beneficiaries of the first scheme in '02 (REUTERS, 3/9).
COE UNDER FIRE: In London, Rumsby also wrote IAAF President Sebastian Coe was accused on Wednesday of giving "untrue" evidence to parliament during a select committee investigation into blood doping in athletics.
Coe "came under attack from scientific researchers" who claim the IAAF blocked the publication of a study which found up to 45% of track and field competitors may have been on drugs.
The authors "wanted their findings, made public by the Culture, Media & Sport select committee last September, to be published in a scientific paper which is peer-reviewed."
They claimed the IAAF "refused to allow them to proceed," something Coe and Thomas Capdevielle, its anti-doping manager, were quizzed about when they appeared before the committee on Dec. 2.
In a letter to Committee Chair Jesse Norman MP which was published Wednesday under parliamentary privilege, University of Tubingen Chancellor Georg Sandberger and Professor Rolf Ulrich, the study’s lead author, wrote, "Lord Coe and Mr Capdevielle rejected to give clear answers to your questions why IAAF still withholds the release of the study for publication in a scientific journal. Their statements are contradictory and -- from our point of view -- in parts also untrue" (TELEGRAPH, 3/10).
'TERRIFYING DEVELOPMENT': REUTERS' Mitch Phillips wrote Ethiopia "is under immense pressure to show it has adequate anti-doping measures."
Ethiopia "is the latest to have its credibility questioned after it was announced last month that six athletes, some of them elite performers, are under investigation for doping."
Kenya, having missed a World Anti-Doping Agency deadline last month, "has now been given until May 12 to show it has adequate systems in place." The two east African countries "have had a stranglehold on the longer distances for both genders." Ethiopia "has so far escaped censure from WADA but the organization has instructed the country to improve its program and develop its own anti-doping organization" after the its athletics doctor Ayalew Tilhaun called its growing drugs problem "a terrifying development" (REUTERS, 3/10). REUTERS' Philip O'Connor wrote the Swedish Athletics Federation "is considering several measures to clean up the sport" after it emerged that runner Abeba Aregawi's B sample had tested positive for meldonium. Sweden's track and field team Manager Karin Torneklint said, "We need to ensure that no active athlete is taking something which is not OK" (REUTERS, 3/10).
LAVROV QUESTIONS BAN: The AP reported coming to the defense of those caught using meldonium, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that "the drug never should have been banned."
Lavrov, echoing comments made by the inventor of the drug, said it was "a very strange decision, according to expert opinion" to put meldonium on the list of banned substances.
He said, "In recent days there has been no limit at all to comments from specialists, including the inventor of this substance. They clearly and professionally explain that it isn't doping at all but a normal method for supporting the body and its basic functions." Lavrov, however, demanded that WADA "present more evidence to prove that meldonium did enhance performance while suggesting the drug's Soviet origins could have led to prejudice against the substance" (AP, 3/10).
