By Nancy Gillen |
The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) has announced it is appealing the International Association of Athletics Federations’ (IAAF) decision to continue its suspension.
RusAF will file its appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), according to Reuters.
They have been suspended since November 2015 when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found evidence through an Independent Commission of state-sponsored doping and cover ups.
In July, the IAAF decided to extend RusAF’s suspension until their next council meeting in December.
The IAAF has its own taskforce investigating Russia’s compliance, which is set to report back its latest findings at December’s meeting.
The suspension means that Russian track and field athletes can not represent the country at international competitions.
Competitors who have met certain criteria have been allowed to take part at events, such as the 2017 World Championships in London, but only as “Authorized Neutral Athletes”.
“We are guided solely by the interests of fairness, justice and equal treatment of clean athletes,” RusAF said in a letter to the IAAF, according to BBC Sport.
RusAF’s decision to appeal their suspension comes after last week’s controversial news that WADA has reinstated the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).
After this decision, Russia were warned by both the IAAF and International Paralympic Committee that they should not expect their bans from those organisations to be automatically lifted.
RusAF have claimed, however, that the criteria for RUSADA’s ban to be lifted was identical to its own.
The IAAF has required RusAF to “take responsibility” for its role in the doping crisis, while providing access to data from the Moscow Laboratory.
This was also required by WADA to reinstate RUSADA, but the global watchdog softened the two remaining criteria on the body’s compliance roadmap to pave the way for Russian reinstatement.
“The IAAF has, from the very beginning, been clear on its reinstatement requirements and processes overseen by an independent taskforce,” the IAAF said in a statement.
“We stand behind the decisions we have made and are very confident of our legal position.
“We will put the required resources behind robustly defending any challenge to the suspension of RusAF, whether at CAS or elsewhere.
“The only way for RusAF to achieve reinstatement is by satisfying the reinstatement conditions to the satisfaction of the IAAF Council.”
Republished with permission from insidethegames.biz.