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In some impactful news coming in from the world of athletics, the International Association of Athletics Federation(IAAF) provisionally suspended the All-Russia Athletics Federation(ARAF) with immediate effect as a member of the apex body, The IAAF website reported.
The apex body used powers under the IAAF Constitution Article 6.11(b) and Article 14.7 the members of the IAAF Council on charges of breach of the Objects of the federation.
The decision was taken at the 201st IAAF Council meeting which had a total of 24 participating members, out whom 22 voted in favour of the sanction against the federation and one voted against it.
The ramifications of the suspension though won't have an effect on Russian athletes and they can continue to take part in domestic competitions but the suspension doest not remove the obligations on Russia to comply with the apex body’s doping rules.
The bigger consequence for Russia as a result of this is that they will not now get to host the World Racing Walking Championships and the World Junior Championships in 2016 and athlete and any support staff from Russia many not compete in International competitions including World Athletics Series competitions and the Olympic Games.
Expectedly there was a sense of disappointment from the ARAF end, but also concurred with the view of the President of the IAAF Lord Sebastian Coe over ensuring that there was no tainted athletes competing in global events.
"The IAAF Athletes’ Commission is extremely disappointed and concerned regarding the recent developments and allegations directed at our sport."
"We are angry at the damage being caused to the reputation and credibility of athletics and are united alongside our President to not shy away from the major challenges that face our sport. The athletes will work together to continue the process of cleaning up athletics to ensure those athletes training and competing cleanly are not tainted by the minority.
"We send a clear message to clean athletes in a dirty system to report any doping or cheating that they see or hear about. We are 100% in support of President Coe and believe that he is the leader that our sport needs to instigate the necessary actions swiftly and strongly,” Frankie Fredricks read a statement on behalf of the IAAF.
Speaking about the decision, Coe said that this was a shameful wake-up call for the federation and that this was the toughest decision they had to make.
Today we have been dealing with the failure of ARAF and made the decision to provisionally suspend them, the toughest sanction we can apply at this time. But we discussed and agreed that the whole system has failed the athletes, not just in Russia, but around the world.
"This has been a shameful wake up call and we are clear that cheating at any level will not be tolerated. To this end, the IAAF, WADA, the member federations and athletes need to look closely at ourselves, our cultures and our processes to identify where failures exist and be tough in our determination to fix them and rebuild trust in our sport. There can be no more important focus for our sport,” the former 1500m champion said.
