A task force has been set up to "examine the credibility of records set in European athletics, in the wake of the sport's doping scandal," according to the BBC. European Athletics President Svein Arne Hansen ordered the review. Hansen said that all records should be "100% believable and credible." Hansen: "However, there is a view that this is currently not the case with some of the performances on the European record list, and so I have ordered this review." The task force will report its findings by September. More than 1,000 Russians, across at least 30 sports, benefited from a state-sponsored doping program between '11 and '15. The EA website currently lists 15 European indoor and outdoor athletics records held by Russians (BBC, 1/26).
WHISTLEBLOWER'S DOUBT: REUTERS' Ted Siefer reported the woman who helped "blow the whistle" on Russian doping "doubts her country's attitude toward performance-enhancing drugs has changed fundamentally" in the three years since she and her husband exposed the "massive" problem. Yulia Stepanova said, "It will be hard to change because you need to change the mentality. A lot of coaches in Russia were athletes themselves, and they were coached in the USSR system. It's hard for them to believe that there's another way to do it" (REUTERS, 1/28).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: In London, Martyn Ziegler reported Paula Radcliffe was omitted from a task force to identify which European records should be erased because of doping suspicions due to "a potential conflict of interest." Radcliffe had been proposed for the task force but the British former distance runner pointed out to EA that there was a potential "clash of interests." In the women's 5,000m, the two runners ahead of Radcliffe in the European record list are Russia's Liliya Shobukhova and Turkey's Elvan Abeylegesse, both of whom have since had doping violations. EA then took the decision that "no athletes should be involved" (LONDON TIMES, 1/27).
NO APPEAL: REUTERS' Brian Homewood reported the Russia Weightlifting Federation has "withdrawn its appeal against a one-year ban from the sport, the Russian news agency TASS said." Russia was banned last July for breaching an Int'l Weightlifting Federation ruling that any country with three or more positive tests in re-analysis of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics would be banned (REUTERS, 1/27).
