IAAF votes to keep Russia banned, Rio participation in balance

June 18, 2016 10:45

Reuters reports: Russian athletes' hopes of competing in the Rio Olympics are now at the mercy of the IOC after world athletics' governing body unanimously upheld its ban on the country for systematic doping, saying not enough progress had been made in reform.

Russia, a superpower of track and field, had lobbied furiously to avert the prospect of a Summer Olympics athletics programme taking place without its athletes, and argued that it was taking all the steps required of it to dispel charges of state-sponsored drug abuse.

But after a meeting of the Council of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in Vienna, its president Sebastian Coe told reporters: "Some progress has been made, but not enough ... The decision was unanimous - politics did not play a part in that room today."

Rune Andersen, who heads the IAAF task force overseeing Russia's attempts to reform, said that a "deep-seated culture of tolerance, or worse, appears not to be materially changed".

"No athlete will compete in Rio under a Russian flag," he said.

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