adminLONDON. — London 2012 Olympic Games medallists are among suspected Russian drugs cheats who escaped bans when bribes were allegedly paid to the heads of world athletics.
The Sunday Times claims it has obtained a list of eight athletes who officials recommended should be banned in 2011.
But it is alleged Lamine Diack, then head of athletics’ world governing body the IAAF, and Dr Gabriel Dolle, the ex-anti-doping chief, received payments.
On Wednesday the pair were placed under investigation by French prosecutors.
Diack, who was in charge of the International Association of Athletics Federations for 16 years until the 82-year-old stepped down in August, is alleged to have received one million euros in payments in 2011. An additional 200 000 euros was allegedly paid to Dolle, to cover up positive doping tests.
Diack, Dolle and the former’s legal adviser, Habib Cisse, face preliminary charges of corruption by France’s financial prosecuting body. Diack also faces charges of money laundering.
New IAAF president Lord Coe, who has offered to co-operate with French police, gave his first response to the sport’s latest crisis on Saturday evening. He said: “That people in our sport have allegedly extorted money from athletes guilty of doping violations is abhorrent.”
The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was already investigating the IAAF following allegations made in a German TV documentary in December 2014 of systematic doping and cover-ups in Russia. It passed on information to French authorities in the summer.
The agency is due to report the findings of its year-long inquiry in Geneva today, with one investigator saying it will reveal “a whole different scale of corruption” compared to an ongoing scandal at football’s world governing body, FIFA.
On Friday, international sports lawyer Richard McLaren, who is one of three Wada independent commissioners to have co-authored the report, said their findings were “going to be a real game-changer for sport”.
“You potentially have a bunch of old men who put a whole lot of extra money in their pockets – through extortion and bribes – but also caused significant changes to actual results and final standings of international athletics competitions,” he said.
He added his team had “found evidence to support what was said in the documentary”.
Diack ended his reign as IAAF president in August, when Briton Coe, a double Olympic 1500m winner, was elected as his replacement. — BBC Sport.
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