MUNICH: A further  condemnation of the world athletics federation and Lamine Diack in the Great Doping Cover-up scandal has been issued by Dick Pound in delivering the second of his reports commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Pound and his two inquiry colleagues accused leaders of the International Association of Athletics Federation of being aware of the extent of doping in athletics and doing little to stop it.

Dick Pound . . . second devastating report

The report – and Pound’s subsequent comments in a news conference – applied even heavier pressure on Lord Sebastian Coe who stepped up as president only in august in succession to now-disgraced Diack.

Coe was in attendance as Pound presented the findings of the report in Munich.

It pulled no punches, in stating: The IAAF Council could not have been unaware of the extent of doping in athletics and the non-enforcement of applicable anti-doping rules.

‘Circle of knowledge’

“It is increasingly clear that far more IAAF staff knew about the problems than has currently been acknowledged.

“It is not credible that elected officials were unaware of the situation affecting … athletics in Russia. If, therefore, the circle of knowledge was so extensive why was nothing done?

“There was an evident lack of political appetite within the IAAF to confront Russia with the full extent of its known and suspected doping activities.”

The report also added: “The corruption was embedded in the organization. It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on its own.”

Diack was accused, by the report, of being “responsible for organizing and enabling the conspiracy and corruption that took place in the IAAF”.

It went on to say: “He sanctioned and appears to have had personal knowledge of the fraud and the extortion of athletes carried out by the actions of the informal illegitimate governance structure he put in place.”

Diack’s direct role was set out starkly by commission member Richard McClaren.

He said: “The information the independent commission has very clearly indicates that the disruption of the federation emanated from the very top – the president Lamine Diack.

Cisse’s role

“He inserted his personal legal advisor Habib Cisse into the IAAF medical and anti-doping department in November of 2011 with the London 2012 and the Moscow 2013 World Championships coming up. He did so to enable Cisse to manage and follow up Russian athlete biological passport cases.

“The Russian coaches around this time did not have a good understanding of the ABP process.

“They had mastered the evasion, manipulation and sometimes destruction of urine samples of Russian athletes so as to not produce positive results, but they had not yet learned how to do the same for the ABP.

“The deliberate insertion by the president of Cisse and his actions were intended to achieve the same results of manipulation and delay with the ABP cases involving the Russians the same result as had been achieved with the urine samples.”

In a separate statement the WADA president, IOC vice-president Sir Craig Reedie, said: “It is hugely disturbing that individuals at the highest levels of the IAAF were abetting and covering up doping for their own financial gain.

“This flagrant disregard for the law and anti-doping rules undermines trust amongst clean athletes, and indeed the public, worldwide. Given their criminal nature, the actions of these individuals are now in the hands of the French justice system.”

The report also questioned high numbers of suspected doping offences among athletes from Turkey, Ukraine, Kenya, Morocco and Spain but said they did not fall within its remit.

The awarding of the 2020 Olympics to Tokyo also was queried after one of Diack’s sons had claimed that a rival bid from Istanbul lost his father’s support because the Turks did not make sponsorship payments of up to $5m.

The report also criticisied Nick Davies, who stepped aside as Coe’s chief of staff last month, over his knowledge of a plan to delay announcing failed dope tests by Russian athletes.

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