IAAF Set For Explosive WADA Report Into Corrupt 'Scumbags'

WADA's second report, understood to include revelations of endemic corruption within IAAF and leading athletics federations, will likely make or break the reign of president Sebastian Coe ©Franck Fife (AFP)

The scandal gripping athletics promises to worsen with publication on Thursday of a second explosive report targeting corrupt "scumbags" and a leaked blood database that could have worldwide ramifications for track and field.

AFP report continues:

The second report by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) independent commission, understood to include shocking revelations of endemic corruption within IAAF and leading athletics federations other than Russia, such as track powerhouses Kenya, will likely make or break the nascent reign of newly-installed president Sebastian Coe.

"When we release this information to the world, there will be a wow factor," warned the report's outspoken co-author and former WADA president Dick Pound in November.

"People will say: 'How on earth could this happen?' It's a complete betrayal of what the people in charge of the sport should be doing."

The crosshairs of the first report fixed firmly on Russia. Accusations of systematic state-sponsored doping and corruption were enough to see the athletics giant banned indefinitely by the IAAF until it gets its house in order.

In the wake of that, former IAAF president Lamine Diack was put under investigation for allegedly having received one million euros (US$1.1 million) as part of a ring blackmailing athletes who had failed doping tests.

Pound was quick to criticise Coe and Sergey Bubka, the Ukrainian pole vault legend whom the British two-time Olympic 1500m gold medallist beat to succeed Diack in August, saying: "They had an opportunity a long time ago to address issues of governance, and you saw from the International Olympic Committee what happens if you don't do that -- you get your tits in the wringer."

The second part of the investigation delves into the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and was held back after the launch of the French police investigation into Diack, his legal advisor Habib Cisse, the former IAAF anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle and Diack's son Papa Massata Diack, the latter two having both received bans from athletics following the IAAF ethics commission's findings.

Tellingly, after Pound's press conference in Munich on Thursday, French financial prosecutor Eliane Houlette will "give a summary on the progress of the investigation conducted since November by the French judicial authorities, about alleged bribery and corruption".

- More shocking than FIFA -

Pound warned this week that evidence of corruption even more shocking than the scandal plaguing world football's governing body FIFA could be produced.

"With very few exceptions, I have not seen international sports federation presidents so involved in corruption, as opposed to moving money around like the FIFA boys," he told The Times newspaper.

"In a sense, this is worse. This gets down to affecting the outcome on the field of play. It's about the integrity of competition... You get to see how some scumbags operated."

Speaking to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, Pound added: "The second report will consist of the possible criminal actions on the part of individuals, in response to the generalized claim that the IAAF did not follow up on positive test results.

"The expansion of our mandate was to look at the database of the IAAF to see whether there is any abnormal anti-doping test results and if so, when and how the IAAF followed it up -- whether there are any discernable patterns of not following up suspicious results.

"There were more than 5,000 athletes in that database, including athletes from other countries such as Kenya. Our experts are going through the entire list right up to the end of 2015."

Pound acknowledged that his commission's initial mandate was very narrow, centred on "Russia only and athletics only".

"But it is fairly clear that there is a problem in Kenya," he added.

"My suspicion is that at some point there will be a similar investigation of Kenya."

Accusations of systematic state-sponsored doping and corruption were enough to see Russia's athletics federation banned indefinitely by the IAAF until it gets its house in order ©Yuri Kadobnov (AFP)

ATHLETICS-IAAF Under Fire As More Russian Doping Allegations Surface

Reuters reports that Athletics' governing body came under renewed fire on Tuesday following disclosures that top officials were aware of a potentially serious doping problem among Russian athletes as far back as 2009.

The Associated Press published a copy of a letter from Pierre Weiss, then the general secretary of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), to Valentin Balakhnichev, the former Russian athletics president who was banned from the sport for life last week.

In the letter, dated Oct. 14, 2009, Weiss described the results of blood tests taken at that year's world championships in Berlin and the world half-marathon championships in Birmingham, England.

"Unfortunately I do not have good news regarding the blood parameter levels of the Russian athletes in Berlin. Again they were extremely high, and again much more so than any other country competing," Weiss wrote.

Referring to the blood levels of Russian athletes in Birmingham, Weiss said two athletes "recorded some of the highest values ever seen since the IAAF started testing".

"Not only are these athletes cheating their fellow competitors but at these levels are putting their health and even their own lives in very serious danger."

In response to questions about the AP report, the IAAF told Reuters that the letters did not show any evidence of wrong-doing and that it followed correct procedures in all the cases. It said athletes were investigated and either sanctioned or are involved in a legal process as part of being sanctioned.

Abnormal blood levels are not in themselves enough for an athlete to be punished for an anti-doping offence but are widely held to be an indicator of possible performance-enhancing drug use.

Athletics was plunged into crisis at the end of last year after an initial report by the independent commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) detailed systematic, state-sponsored doping and related corruption in Russia.

In the wake of the report, Russian athletes were banned indefinitely by the IAAF.

A WADA spokesman on Wednesday said the suggestions in the AP story, if accurate, were "most concerning".

"If this is new information that WADA's independent commission has not already examined, it will need to be investigated," he said in comments e-mailed to Reuters.

Weiss told Balakhnichev that the results from Berlin strongly suggested "a systematic abuse of blood doping or EPO-related products", the AP said.

He added that if there had been "no start" rules at the world championships for athletes with abnormal blood readings, seven Russian competitors and two gold medallists would have been prevented from competing.

Internal IAAF notes, copies of which were reproduced in the story, also proposed a two-track approach to punishing Russian dopers.

"NO COVER-UP"

One leaked document from 2011 said there would be by-the-book sanctions for the best-known elite athletes likely to win medals at the London Games.

The note also said there would be "rapid and discreet" handling of second-tier cases, working "in close collaboration" with the Russian athletics federation, for less well-known athletes whose sudden and unexplained disappearance from competition would likely pass unnoticed.

The IAAF responded to the AP report by saying that every suspicious Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) profile was investigated in full and that nothing was covered-up.

"In 2011, there was a huge influx of suspicious profiles coming through the ABP," the IAAF told Reuters in a statement on Tuesday, adding that as each case can take up to 18 months to process there was a need to expedite those cases which involved potential medal winners ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games.

"No cases were concealed or suppressed, the IAAF simply tackled them in order of importance.

"Every athlete was investigated and has either been sanctioned or is currently going through a legal process as part of being sanctioned."