IAAF outlines process for eligibility of Russian athletes
After adding an exception Friday to a ban of Russia’s track and field athletes that could allow some of them to compete in the Rio Olympics, the International Association of Athletics Federations outlined the process by which athletes could appeal for their eligibility.
A release provided clarity on how the process would work, but still to be resolved is a question of whether any athletes granted exceptional eligibility by the IAAF would compete as neutral athletes, as the IAAF has asserted, or under the Russian flag, as the International Olympic Committee has said.
The IAAF extended the ban of Russia’s athletics federation last week on the recommendations of a taskforce charged with verifying it had met criteria for reinstatement. While progress had been made, the taskforce said, a “deep-seated culture of tolerance (or worse) for doping” remains in Russian athletics.
Russia has been barred from entering international competitions since November, when a World Anti-Doping Agency independent commission report revealed state-sponsored doping in the sport.
The IAAF council passed a rule amendment allowing individual athletes to apply for an exemption if they could show they had been subject to effective anti-doping programs outside the country and had not been tainted by the Russian system.
According to the IAAF guidelines, athletes can apply in writing to have their appeal considered by a three-person doping review board.
That group would consider, among other things, the contact an athlete has had with coaches, officials, doctors and support personnel in his or her national federation; intelligence, investigations and results management of the athlete; whether that athlete has samples in storage that could be re-tested; the amount of in-competition and out-of-competition testing the athlete has been subject to; and how the quality of the testing the athlete has been subject to compares to that of his or her international competitors during the same period.
"Both the Taskforce and the Doping Review Board have worked extremely hard to get to where we are today, just days away from the European Championships,” IAAF president Sebastien Coe said in a statement. “We know there are some Russian athletes considering applying to compete in international competitions under this new rule so it is important they are all clear about the criteria under which their application will be reviewed.”
The board will give its decision, with a brief explanation, to athletes “as soon as reasonably practicable.” Any athlete granted exceptional eligibility would have to be invited to an international competition by the organizers of that event, so, in the case of the Rio Olympics, from the IOC.