World athletics' governing body, Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), is under fire as they allegedly explored covering up the bans of Russian athletes for doping. The IAAF's internal documents leaked to the Associated Press showed that the officials of the body were in fact aware of Russian doping scandal as far back as 2009, six years before the IAAF banned the country from international competition.
The internal documents obtained by The Associated Press said that IAAF knew that Russia's doping was so out of control it feared Russian athletes could die from abuse of blood-boosting drugs transfussions. In the documents, the IAAF officials also considered collaborating with Russia to cover up the cheating as the 2012 London Olympics approached.
The IAAF general secretary Pierre Weiss wrote in a hand-delivered letter dated Oct 14, 2009, to Valentin Balakhnichev, the Russian athletics president at the time, "This matter of the Russian athletes' blood levels is now so serious and is not getting any better (in fact possibly getting worse) that immediate and drastic action is needed."
Weiss wrote that not only the Russian athletes are cheating their competitors but the doping levels are putting their health and even their own lives in very serious danger. Weiss mentioned that blood results from Russian athletes "recorded some of the highest values ever seen since the IAAF started testing."
The blood tests conducted at the 2009 World Championship in Athletics, where Russia won 13 medals, strongly suggested a systematic abuse of blood doping or EPO related products, the injectable hormone used by cheats to boost their level of oxygen carrying red blood cells to artificially improve their performance. Over abuse of the drug increases risk of clots, strokes and heart attacks.
In response to the leaked documents obtained from a person intimately involved in the workings of the IAAF's anti-doping program, the IAAF told Reuters that the documents did not show any evidence of wrong-doing and that it followed correct procedures in all the cases. The IAAF said that every suspicious Athlete Biological Passport profile was investigated in full and that nothing was covered up.
In November 2015, the IAAF suspended Russia from all sanctioned international competition until further notice, including the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, following a report from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that confirmed widespread use of blood doping by Russian athletes, Washington Post reported.
The IAAF said the ban will not be lifted unless Russia complies with IAAF recommendations. The international body also gave a life ban to Valentin Balakhnichev, the former president of the Russian athletics federation.
