Russia picks fight over doping after IAAF ban extended
MOSCOW — Russian athletics looked set for conflict with the IAAF over doping even as the government admitted on Tuesday some top coaches relied on giving banned substances to their athletes.
The IAAF on Monday said Russia would probably not be reinstated to global athletics until at least November, extending a ban first imposed in November 2015. That means there won’t be an official Russia team at the world championships in August, though there may be “neutral” athletes competing.
A new IAAF road map obliges the All-Russian Athletics Federation to confront World Anti-Doping Agency allegations the Russian state oversaw a vast coverup of drug use, either by accepting them or “convincingly rebutting those findings.”
ARAF first vice-president Andrei Silnov ruled out an admission Russian doping was state-backed.