Tuesday, 2 February 2016

Athletics:Officials banned in Russian case take appeal to sport's highest court


All three athletics officials banned for life by the International Association of Athletics Federations ethics commission in January for bribery and extortion to cover up a Russian doping case have appealed to sport's highest court.

Every member of Russia's track and field team will have to sign an anti-doping pledge as the country tries to restore its sporting reputation.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport says Papa Massata Diack of Senegal and Russian officials Valentin Balakhnichev and Alexei Melnikov "all seek to have their life bans from involvement in the sport of track and field annulled."

Diack is the son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack and was the governing body's marketing consultant. He is the subject of an Interpol notice seeking his arrest for questioning in France.

Balakhnichev was the longtime president of the Russian athletics federation and a former IAAF treasurer. Melnikov was the head coach of Russian distance runners and race walkers.

They were found guilty of conspiring to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from Russian marathoner Liliya Shobukhova so she could avoid a doping ban before the 2012 London Olympics.

The IAAF ethics panel published its findings Jan. 7. Diack, Balakhnichev and Melnikov all deny wrongdoing.

"All three compounded the vice of what they did by conspiring to extort what were in substance bribes from [Shobukhova] by acts of blackmail," the IAAF panel said. "They acted dishonestly and corruptly and did unprecedented damage to the sport of track and field, which, by their actions, they have brought into serious disrepute."

CAS gave no expected timetable for the cases when it announced that the appeals have been registered.

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