A SCATHING report released by the World Anti-Doping Agency on the eve of the IAAF’s council meeting last week left Seb Coe and his colleagues with little choice when it came to upholding the Russian ban.
It revealed details of Russian athletes’ attempts to evade drug-testers, which saw one female athlete run out of the stadium in the middle of a race and another try to fool antidoping officers by submitting a clean sample from a container inserted inside her body before then offering a bribe.
The report, collated in partnership with UK Anti-Doping (UKAD), said that from November 18 to May 29 a total of 2947 tests were conducted on Russian athletes across a range of sports. Of those, 1137 are said to have been in-competition tests and 1810 out-of-competition, with 655 being IAAF tests, while UKAD conducted 455 tests on Russian athletes between February 15 and May 29.