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ATHLETICS

Russian athletes miss out on Indoor Athletics Championships

As athletes compete in the world indoor athletics championships in the US state of Oregon this week, much of the spotlight will be on the absence of Russian competitors, due to a ban over large-scale doping. For the sport’s governing body, it will take time before the country regains their trust.

The IAAF president Lord Coe
The IAAF president Lord Coe Reuters/Eric Gaillard
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The world indoor athletics championships got underway on Thursday in an atmosphere oddly reminiscent of 1980s' boycotts.

But this time, there was nothing political about the absence of Russia’s top athletes in the American city of Portland: they simply were not invited.

This was the first championships since Russia was banned by the International Athletics Associations Federation (IAAF) in September, over allegations of widespread doping.

In a competition where Russia traditionally battles with the US at the top of the medal table, their absence did not go unnoticed.

The American indoor pole vault record holder and Olympic champion Jenn Suhr missed out on the chance to challenge her Russian rival, the outdoor record holder Yelena Isinbayeva.

The 34-year-old US star took gold on the first day with a championship record clearance of 4.90 metres.

As he opened the competition on Thursday, IAAF president Lord Sebastian Coe could hardly dodge the issue.

"We're not going to return to trust overnight, it is not a straight forward equation. You don't stick $10 in the slot machine and suddenly trust emerges in the tray," Coe told reporters.

An IAAF inspection team appointed to judge whether the All-Russia Athletics Federation (ARAF) should regain its membership of the governing body will not report back until 27 March – after the world indoor championships.

"This will take a long time,” Coe said on Thursday.

“We cannot demand trust. It is not going to just return because people suddenly think we have got reforms in place, but we do need to go through that process.”

Ukraine's former European indoor 800 metres champion Nataliya Lupu will also miss out on the championships after testing positive for meldonium, the same banned substance that Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova admitted using.

Coe suggested these recurring meldonium cases could be part of a wider problem of athletes abusing prescription drugs to enhance their performances.

“We need to look very closely at that,” Coe said. “But the bigger challenge of course is around the use of prescription drugs if there isn’t an underlying medical condition.”

To make matters worse for the championships’ organisers, some of the sport’s biggest names continue to brush off the event.

Without the king of sprint Usain Bolt or the Americans Tyson Gray and Justin Gatlin, the 60-metre dash will certainly lack glamour, as will long distance running, which Olympic champion Mo Farah has decided to skip.

Russia’s athletes and administrators were accused of doping on a state scale by a report from an independent commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Dick Pound, the commission head, recommended the country be suspended for 2016 "so that they can take the remedial work in time to make sure that Russian athletes can compete under a new framework".

As well as the indoor athletics, Russia could also miss out on the chance to host the 2016 World Race Walking Cup in Cheboksary and the 2016 World Junior Championships in Kazan.

The country might also miss out on the Olympic games in Rio this summer.
 

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