Press Release - World Athletics - 7/2/20

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

                      Statement on Russian Federation

World Athletics can confirm that it has not received the payments due from 
the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) on 1 July, nor any information on 
when the monies may be paid, despite reminders and correspondence with the 
Federation.

As a result, World Athletics will stand down both the Doping Review Board 
(DRB) and the Russian Taskforce until World Athletics' Council has reviewed 
and discussed the situation at their meeting on 29-30 July, as set out in 
the decision made by the Council on 12 March.

Both the Russian Taskforce and the DRB have, in good faith, moved forward 
in a number of areas such as the process to recruit two independent experts 
to work alongside RusAF and its Reinstatement Commission on a detailed 
reinstatement plan. The DRB has also opened up the Authorised Neutral 
Athlete (ANA) process to facilitate the granting of ANA status for athletes 
returning to competition, in preparation for the fine being paid by July 1. 
Both of these processes will be put on hold until the Council meets at the 
end of July to ensure World Athletics is not incurring additional costs 
that may not be reimbursed.

World Athletics President, Sebastian Coe, said:

"We recognise these are difficult times, but we are very disappointed by 
the lack of progress made by RusAF in terms of the requirements set in 
March. The serious allegations of breaching the anti-doping rules resulted 
in a new RusAF administration and we had assurances and hoped that change 
was on its way. However, the experience of the Russian Taskforce, chaired 
by Rune Andersen, is that this has fallen well short of expectations. RusAF 
is letting its athletes down badly. We have done as much as we can to 
expedite our ANA process and support RusAF with its reinstatement plan, but 
seemingly to no avail. The terms of payment of the fine and costs were 
clear and unchallenged by RusAF at the time so this issue will now need to 
return to Council at the end of July, as we stated in March."

The payments due from RusAF by 1 July are USD $5 million (fine) and $1.31 
million (Reinstatement Conditions & Verification Criteria costs incurred 
from 30 June 2019 to 31 March 2020, including Legal & CAS Costs; Task Force 
Costs; Doping Review Board Costs, and Lysenko Investigation costs).

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