A Rio Olympic athletics program without Russia looked an "ever-stronger possibility" on Friday after the IAAF said the track and field superpower had "significant work to do" to have its ban for doping lifted in time, according to Phillips & Stubbs of REUTERS. But the comments from the IAAF "incensed" Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, who insisted that "the country had done enough to meet the association's anti-doping standards."
Missing the Olympics "would be a humiliating blow for Russia." Norwegian Rune Andersen, heading a five-person int'l task force reviewing Russia's reforms after its suspension from global competition in November, said its athletics had made "significant progress," including changing its president and council and developing anti-doping educational programs. Anderson wrote,
"However, the view of the task force is that there is significant work still to be done to satisfy the reinstatement conditions." IAAF President Sebastian Coe, whose first year in office has involved a "comprehensive shakeup" of athletics to eradicate corruption and doping, "suggested a final decision would be taken at a council meeting in May." Coe said,
"You should conclude that these decisions will be taken at that point. There were no preordained outcomes today. We wanted to hear what Rune and the team had to say and we were unanimously satisfied that more work needed to be done before we could ultimately make a decision" (REUTERS, 3/12). REUTERS' Jack Stubbs wrote Mutko said that Russia "has already done enough to meet anti-doping standards dictated by world athletics' governing body and reclaim its place at the Rio Olympics this summer."
Mutko: "You say we should elect new leadership for the athletics federation -- OK, we've done that. You should not elect anyone to be the leader who has done this or that -- OK, we did that. There are no criteria. What should Russian athletics do? Dance on the table? Sing a song?" Mutko said that "the IAAF's decision to uphold the ban would further punish athletes who are clean and also damage Russian competitors' performance in Rio if in the end they are allowed to compete at the Games." He said,
"For another several months our teams will remain in a state of not knowing about what is going to happen. It means that our sportsmen will lose their competitive edge. It means that clean sportsmen will yet again be punished for nothing" (REUTERS, 3/11). The BBC reported Coe revealed five other nations -- Ethiopia, Morocco, Ukraine, Kenya and Belarus -- "are also under scrutiny."
He said, "We want to return trust to our sport -- this is not just a Russian issue. We have to be on the front foot. We need to be proactive about these things. I'm here to be judged on how many athletes I can get from safe secure systems into free, fair and open competition. And that has to be the sole arbiter" (BBC, 3/11).
