Below are a few notes of interest from the 212th IAAF Council Meeting currently being held in Monaco. 

2020 IAAF World Indoor Championships Awarded To China

Nanjing, China, successfully won the bid to host the 2020 IAAF World Indoor Championships over Belgrade, Serbia, and Torun, Poland. Nanjing last hosted a major track and field event in 2014 with the Olympic Youth Games.

The IAAF also announced Gydnia, Poland, as host city of the 2020 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships and Minsk, Belarus, as host city of the 2020 IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships.

Russia Still Banned -- For Now

The IAAF will not reinstate the Russian Athletics Federation to its membership until the nation fulfills five verification criteria, only one of which it has achieved to date ("support for the Clean Sport Movement"). According to the IAAF briefing, the Russian federation has "partly met" the requirements to improve drug testing and enforce coaching suspensions, but has thus far failed to acknowledge the McLaren findings and reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). 

The McLaren report indicates that state-sponsored doping helped over 1,000 Russian athletes cheat in 30 different sports between 2012 and 2015. 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is slated to decide on December 5 whether or not the entire Russian Athletics Federation will be banned from the 2018 Winter Olympic Games hosted by Pyeongchang, South Korea. Only the track and field athletes were banned from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

The Next Ruth Jebet Is Still Wearing A Kenyan Jersey

The transfer of allegiance process will remain frozen until at least March 2018, when the IAAF Working Group is scheduled to meet again on the topic. The group cited "a lack of understanding as to the key drivers behind some transfers." Many of the highest profile athletes from Bahrain, Turkey, and Qatar are actually Kenyan in nationality but are paid to transfer their allegiance.