Russian system has failed its athletes: Sebastian Coe

IAAF president Lord Coe (right) insists Russia, not his organisation, is responsible for the country’s drug-free athletes being banned from competing at this summer’s Olympics

London: IAAF president Lord Coe (right) insists Russia, not his organisation, is responsible for the country’s drug-free athletes being banned from competing at this summer’s Olympics.

Lord Coe

The governing body’s 27-strong council unanimously decided at a meeting in Vienna on Friday to extend Russia’s suspension from international competition for doping offences, ruling that the criteria for reinstatement had not been met.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has labelled the ban “unjust and unfair” while pole vault star Yelena Isinbayeva repeated her threat to sue the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee for an infringement of her human rights if prevented from competing. The IOC said it “fully respects” the IAAF’s decision.

“We have not prevented clean athletes from Russia from competing, rather the Russian system has cataclysmically failed their clean athletes,” Coe wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.

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