Italian Investigators Say IAAF Officials Covered Up Italian Olympic Racewalker's Doping

Investigators in Italy said that officials for the Int'l Association of Athletics Federations had evidence that an Olympic Gold Medalist used performance-enhancing drugs "but made no effort to prevent him from competing in last summer's Olympic Games in London," according to Claudio Gatti of the N.Y. TIMES. The revelation "stemmed from an investigation being conducted by prosecutors in Bolzano, Italy," into Italian track and field federation Medical Dir and IAAF Anti-Doping Commission member Dr. Giuseppe Fischetto. Italy's military police said that "the authorities obtained e-mail messages indicating that as early as April 2012," IAAF officials were aware of abnormal doping test results for the racewalker Alex Schwazer, who won Gold at the 2008 Beijing Games. Prosecutors accuse Fischetto of "complicit behavior, that consisted in not activating any anti-doping control against the athlete, in fact allowing him to take illegal performance enhancing substances" (N.Y. TIMES, 6/18).