Russia faces being suspended from athletics by the end of the week, as the fallout from Dick Pound’s devastating report into state-sponsored doping begins to reverberate around world sport.
Sebastian Coe, the head of the sport's global governing body who is under pressure to act in the wake of the damning report that also alleged "corruption and bribery practices at the very highest level of international athletics", will chair a meeting of the IAAF council on Friday at which sanctions against Russia will be decided.
It is understood that senior figures within the IAAF council will push for Russia to be immediately provisionally suspended. Russia has until Thursday to respond to the allegations of cover-ups, destruction of samples and payment of money to conceal positive doping tests contained in Pound’s report.
Coe is also expected to come under renewed pressure to give up his advisory role with the sportswear giant Nike as he battles to save his sport's reputation. The British Conservative MP Damian Collins, who will be among those on the select committee who will quiz Coe before Christmas, said Coe should quit his role with Nike.
“I am going to ask him about that. If athletics is going to have a new clean image it can’t be right for the president of the IAAF to be sponsored by Nike,” said Collins. “We are also going to ask about the process of how the IAAF has handled this doping scandal.”
The whistleblower who sparked the global investigation into corruption involving senior figures in the IAAF and Russian Athletics has called for the authorities to turn the spotlight on doping in other countries, particularly Kenya and Ethiopia.
Andrey Baranov, the Russian sports agent who wrote a signed deposition to the IAAF in April 2014 detailing bribery and extortion at the highest levels of the sport, said it was unfair that the focus was only on Russia. Guardian Service
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