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Report Alleges Possible Criminal Behavior by Top Track Officials
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/s...nal-behavior-by-top-track-officials.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/sports/report-alleges-possible-criminal-behavior-by-top-track-officials.html?_r=0
Top officials running the sport of track and field have for years abused their positions and possibly engaged in criminal behavior, blackmailing athletes who doped and failing to discipline them in a timely fashion, according to a report released on Thursday by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The 89-page report was the result of an investigation by a task force that spent the last year examining allegations of widespread doping and corruption. It raised questions about past leaders of the sport who were already under criminal investigation as well as the sport’s celebrated current leader, Sebastian Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who was in charge of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
The first part of the group’s inquiry concluded in November, with a report that accused Russia of a state-sponsored doping program. Those findings prompted track and field’s governing body to suspend Russia from global competition, jeopardizing its participation in this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The investigation’s second report, released Thursday in Munich, shifted attention from Russia to the ruling body overseeing the sport globally: the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Well before the antidoping commission’s investigation, the I.A.A.F. knew the extent of Russia’s drug abuse, Dick Pound, an author of the report, said. Top officials, the inquiry found, were complicit in keeping tainted athletes in competition, extorting money from athletes and delaying the processing of drug test violations.
Unlike Russian coaches, trainers, doctors and state police — whom the commission accused of actively destroying drug samples — I.A.A.F. officials did not erase records but rather delayed filing them, expecting that inaction might make matters go away, the inquiry found.
The report raised new questions about how compromised sports officials can be in investigating and disciplining doping violations, calling the corruption embedded in the organization. “It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on his own,” it said. “It is increasingly clear that far more I.A.A.F. staff knew about the problems than has currently been acknowledged.”
The I.A.A.F did not reply to request for immediate comment.
Lamine Diack, the organization’s longtime president until last August, solicited illegal payments in exchange for such delayed processing of paperwork, the report said, and in at least one instance advised a lawyer he needed to consult Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had become a friend, regarding the doping violations of nine Russian athletes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/s...nal-behavior-by-top-track-officials.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/15/sports/report-alleges-possible-criminal-behavior-by-top-track-officials.html?_r=0
Top officials running the sport of track and field have for years abused their positions and possibly engaged in criminal behavior, blackmailing athletes who doped and failing to discipline them in a timely fashion, according to a report released on Thursday by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The 89-page report was the result of an investigation by a task force that spent the last year examining allegations of widespread doping and corruption. It raised questions about past leaders of the sport who were already under criminal investigation as well as the sport’s celebrated current leader, Sebastian Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who was in charge of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
The first part of the group’s inquiry concluded in November, with a report that accused Russia of a state-sponsored doping program. Those findings prompted track and field’s governing body to suspend Russia from global competition, jeopardizing its participation in this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
The investigation’s second report, released Thursday in Munich, shifted attention from Russia to the ruling body overseeing the sport globally: the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Well before the antidoping commission’s investigation, the I.A.A.F. knew the extent of Russia’s drug abuse, Dick Pound, an author of the report, said. Top officials, the inquiry found, were complicit in keeping tainted athletes in competition, extorting money from athletes and delaying the processing of drug test violations.
Unlike Russian coaches, trainers, doctors and state police — whom the commission accused of actively destroying drug samples — I.A.A.F. officials did not erase records but rather delayed filing them, expecting that inaction might make matters go away, the inquiry found.
The report raised new questions about how compromised sports officials can be in investigating and disciplining doping violations, calling the corruption embedded in the organization. “It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on his own,” it said. “It is increasingly clear that far more I.A.A.F. staff knew about the problems than has currently been acknowledged.”
The I.A.A.F did not reply to request for immediate comment.
Lamine Diack, the organization’s longtime president until last August, solicited illegal payments in exchange for such delayed processing of paperwork, the report said, and in at least one instance advised a lawyer he needed to consult Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had become a friend, regarding the doping violations of nine Russian athletes.
