Russia Admits Their Guilt (Sort Of), Meeting With IAAF Looms

Russia Admits Their Guilt (Sort Of), Meeting With IAAF Looms

Nov 12, 2015 by Lincoln Shryack
Russia Admits Their Guilt (Sort Of), Meeting With IAAF Looms



Seb Coe will lead the IAAF council's ruling tomorrow on sanctions against Russia

In at least a partial admission that the independent WADA commission’s report on “state-sponsored” doping in Russia has accurately exposed their cheating, Russian Athletics Federation president Vadim Zelichenok told the Associated Press today that the country is ready to fess up to the allegations. Well, sort of.
 
“We admit some things, we argue some things, some are already fixed, it’s a variety,” Zelichenok told the AP. “It’s not for the press.” 
 
Translation: can we just forget about our cheating, guys? 
 
Sorry Vadim, this is for the press. ARAF lost its right to slide back into the shadows when journalist of the year Hajo Seppelt uncovered their sophisticated doping scheme back in December, with the world now privy to all the facts thanks to the Dick Pound-led investigation. 
 
And what exactly is “fixed,” Mr. Zelichenok? According to the independent commission, the doping didn’t slow down in 2015 even as your athletes became aware of the investigation, which doesn’t exactly signal a fix in my eyes. 
 
So far, the only clean up of any kind has been the resignation of Moscow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov, who fancied himself as a Mr. Fix-It when he happily destroyed 1,417 samples so that they couldn’t be used in the report. He decided to “do some clean up to prepare for WADA’s visit,” which totally wasn’t suspicious at all or anything. Rodchenkov’s pink slip is similar to putting a band-aid over a bullet wound, so I hope that’s not the “already fixed” part that Zelichenok is referring to. 
 
Of course, his comments on Thursday come a day before the IAAF is expected to rule on ARAF’s culpability with a possible ban from competition, which is chief among ironies right now considering that the former IAAF president of 16 years was arrested last week for accepting bribes from, you guessed it, the Russians. 
 
New president Seb Coe is now the man in charge, and will “seek an explanation” from the Russians tomorrow on the independent commission’s report, although I think we could also use an explanation from Coe himself after his painful interview on Monday with Jon Snow, which was about on par with the Matt Lauer/Tom Cruise 2005 “Glib” interview on the awkwardness scale. Questions about Coe’s knowledge of the IAAF bribery have only intensified as this story continues to unravel, and so far the former Olympic champion has not done enough to disassociate himself from Diack to warrant anyone’s trust.   
 
If Russia is as bad at explaining themselves as Coe has been, we can only hope that it will result in their expulsion from this summer’s Olympic Games, as Russia must now be used as an example for those other doping-stricken nations that expect to proceed in the status quo. 
 
I take comfort in the fact that there are people out there like Hajo Sepelt and Dick Pound who are willing to put themselves in harm’s way so that track can maintain some form of decency, and Coe and his council must now finish the deal. 
 
Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said today that Russia will “not in any case” boycott the Rio Olympics, which should make the IAAF’s decision all the easier. This is Seb Coe’s chance to prove that his campaign benchmark to clean up athletics was not just lip service, and simultaneously, that he’s ready to push track and field back to respectability.