The Russian Athletics Federation (Rusaf) on Tuesday asked the International Federation (World Athletics) not to comment on a possible suspension of Russian athletes, whose reinstatement under neutral flag is threatened after non-payment of a fine for doping. In a letter to World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, Rusaf called for an examination of the “possibility of postponing” a decision on the status of the Russian federation, given its “work already done” to fight against doping. The request comes as the World Athletics Council is due to consider the possibility of a full suspension of Russian athletes at a meeting on July 29-30.
$ 5 million to find
At the beginning of July, the international federation announced the temporary freezing of the process of reinstatement of Russian athletes under neutral banner because Rusaf had not paid on time a fine imposed for violation of the anti-doping rules. Indeed, the Russian federation had until July 1 to pay this fine of five million dollars (4.46 million euros) imposed in March by World Athletics for helping the vice-world champion in high jump 2017, Danil Lysenko, to escape a sanction for breaches of his whereabouts obligations for unannounced doping controls. In its letter to World Athletics on Tuesday, the Russian federation said it still had not found the money to pay the fine. "We assure the Council, however, that we continue to seek external funding" and "hope that we will make progress in this area", supported Rusaf.
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World Athletics had already frozen in November 2019 the process for handpicked Russian athletes to participate in competitions outside Russia before allowing a quota of 10 Russian athletes to take part in the Tokyo Olympics in exchange for payment of this. fine. The body also froze the reintegration process of Russia, suspended since November 2015 for having established an institutional doping system. At the end of June, stars of Russian athletics, Maria Lasitskene, Sergey Shubenkov and Anzhelika Sidorova, questioned President Vladimir Putin on the "catastrophic situation" of their sport, calling on him to act so as not to be deprived of the Tokyo Olympics .
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