World Athletics Hits Russian Athletics Federation With $10m Fine
World Athletics has fined the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) $10 million for breaches of anti-doping rules.
The news came as the governing body reinstated the Authorised Neutral Athlete (ANA) process for Russian athletes, but capped the number of participants allowed to compete in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 at 10.
“The package of sanctions approved by the Council today reflects the seriousness of RusAF’s wrongdoing and sends a clear message that we take these types of offenses by our Member Federations extremely seriously,” said Sebastian Coe, President, World Athletics.
“We have consistently tried to separate the clean athletes from a tainted system, which is why we have reinstated the ANA process for athletes from Russia, enabling them to once again compete in International one-day competitions and earn prize money, but we have restricted the number of athletes eligible to compete in senior International and European events, including at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Clearly the previous measures were not enough to change the culture in Russian athletics. We hope this further measure will be sufficient to provoke real change.”
World Athletics has also confirmed, however, that there will be no restriction on the number of ANA athletes that can compete in international one-day events around the world, provided those athletes have granted ANA status by World Athletics Doping Review Board. The body also stated, however, that the ANA process will be suspended if $5 million of the $10m fine is not paid by RusAF by 1st July 2020.
“The decision to suspend half of the $10 million fine for a period of two years is predicated on the cultural and behavioural change we want to see across all structures in athletics in Russia. But we need to be clear, if the initial sum of $5 million is not paid by 1 July 2020, then the entire decision made today will be revisited and could result in the ANA status being revoked indefinitely.”
Meanwhile, the governing body has also announced new dates for the previously postponed World Athletics Indoor Championships, which was due to take place in Nanjing in China this week. Instead, the event will be held in the same city between 19th and 21st March 2021.
