Three senior athletics officials "have been provisionally suspended by the IAAF's Ethics Board pending an investigation into their alleged involvement in a suspected cover-up of Russian doping cases," according to Mitch Phillips of REUTERS.
Nick Davies, who was chief-of-staff to Int'l Association of Athletics Federations President Seb Coe, "was suspended along with his wife Jane Boulter-Davies and IAAF medical manager Pierre-Yves Garnier."
Davies, his wife, an IAAF education official, and Garnier "did not immediately respond to email requests for comment." The IAAF said that "it had not received a response to the suspensions from any of the trio."
The Ethics Board said that the suspensions "had been imposed to protect the integrity of the sport 'but do not prejudice the outcome of the investigations.'"
It said that the case related to an email reportedly sent by former IAAF consultant Papa Massata Diack to his father and then-IAAF president Lamine Diack in July '13. The email, reported by French daily Le Monde, "allegedly showed that the three were in receipt of, or had knowledge of, a cash payment to withhold details of attempted cover-ups of Russian doping cases." IAAF Ethics Board Chair Michael Beloff said that Friday's suspensions "were decided after the board determined that there was a prima facie case to answer that warranted investigation" (REUTERS, 6/10).
