MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd November, 2019) The World Athletics Council has decided to suspend the process of reinstatement of membership of the Russian Athletics Federation's (RusAF) in the wake of charges recently laid against Russian sports officials, Rune Andersen, who heads the international organization's task force overseeing RusAF's reinstatement, said.
On Thursday, the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), an independent organization addressing threats to integrity in athletics, announced charges of breaching Anti-Doping Rules against several high-ranked RusAF officials, including the federation head, Dmitry Shlyakhtin, and executive director Alexander Parkin. The charges include, among other things, obstruction of investigation in the case of Russian high jumper Danil Lysenko. The athlete himself has been provisionally suspended, too.
"The task force proposed to the Council today � and this was unanimously approved � the following ... that council immediately suspends the RusAF reinstatement process pending the resolution of the charges [laid against RusAF officials]," Andersen told reporters after the World Athletics Council meeting in Monaco on Friday.
A video recording of the press conference was published on the World Athletics YouTube channel.
RusAF was suspended from the IAAF in November 2015 over allegations of anti-doping rules violations in Russian sports.
The Russian authorities have repeatedly refuted the accusations of running a doping program but acknowledged that the country's athletics had some problems with doping that were being tackled.
