1RUSSIA TASKFORCE REPORT TO COUNCIL MEETING OF 22 NOVEMBER 20191.
At the Council meeting in Doha in September, I reported that the AIU wasinvestigating whether senior RusAF officials were complicit in Russian high jumper Danil
Lysenko’s provision of fabricated medical records to the AIU in an effort to avoid being
suspended for a whereabouts violation. As we have just heard, yesterday the AIU
announced that it has charged RusAF with failing to cooperate with the investigation andobstructing the investigation, and it has also charged a number of senior RusAF officials,
including the President Dmitry Shlyakhtin, the Executive Director, Alexander Parkin, and a
Board member, Artur Karamyan, with tampering and/or complicity in the provision of false
explanations and forged evidence to the AIU, and has provisionally suspended them pending
determination of the charges by the independent disciplinary tribunal.
2.
I also told Council in September that WADA and the AIU had both found significant
discrepancies in the data from the Moscow laboratory that the Russian authorities provided
to WADA in January 2019. As a reminder, the data relates to the results of the laboratory’s
analysis of athletes’ samples in 2012-2015. The discrepancies uncovered suggest there has
been deliberate tampering with the data. In particular, presumptive positive findings thatappear in a copy of the LIMS database provided to WADA by a whistleblower are missing
from the copy of that database provided to WADA by the Russian authorities, and the raw
data and PDF files from the tests leading to those positive findings have been deleted oraltered. The explanations offered by the Russian authorities for these issues did not satisfy
WADA or its experts, and therefore a recommendation has been made to WADA’s Executive
Committee to send RUSADA formal notice of non-compliance and to propose consequencesin accordance with the principles set out in the International Standard for Code Complianceby Signatories. The recommendation (the precise content of which is confidential) will beconsidered by WADA’s Executive Committee at a meeting in Paris on 9 December 2019.

1

As a reminder, RusAF (fka ARAF) was suspended from membership of the IAAF in November
2015, after a WADA Commission concluded there was a systemic and deeply-rooted culture of dopingin Russian athletics. Council decided that, in order to be reinstated to membership, RusAF must
demonstrate that it meets the following Reinstatement Conditions: (i) it complies in full with theWorld Anti-Doping Code and IAAF Anti-Doping Rules; (ii) the IAAF and RUSADA (the Russian nationalanti-doping organisation) are and will be able to conduct their anti-doping programmes in Russia (inparticular, drug-testing) effectively and without interference; and (iii) as a result, the reintegration ofRussian athletes into international competitions will not jeopardise the integrity of thosecompetitions. A number of specific Verification Criteria were identified that have to be met as part ofthis task.
In April 2017, Council approved a Roadmap proposed by the Taskforce that identified six
specific conditions to be met in order for the Taskforce to consider recommending RusAF'sreinstatement. And in 2018 Council added a further requirement, relating to the LIMS data provided
by WADA to the IAAF in December 2017.
All of these requirements are designed to ensure that RusAF establishes a culture of zerotolerance towards doping in Russian athletics, and that RusAF, RUSADA, and the public authorities inRussia, working in cooperation, create an anti-doping infrastructure that is effective in detecting anddeterring cheats, so that RusAF and its athletes can start participating again in international
competitions without jeopardising the integrity of those competitions.

13.
These two developments call into very serious question whether there has been any
change of culture in Russian sport since the systemic doping of Russian athletes was first
exposed back in 2015.
4.

The Taskforce therefore recommends that:
4.1

Council immediately suspends the RusAF reinstatement process pending
resolution of the above charges.

4.2

Council mandates the members of the Taskforce and the Doping Review
Board to review the ‘Authorised Neutral Athlete’ (ANA) mechanism that
Council put in place in June 2016, and to make recommendations toCouncil as to whether that mechanism can and should continue to be used
given the above developments, and (if so) in what form. Any ANA
applications received in the interim to be held in abeyance pending suchreview.

4.3

Council mandates the Taskforce to make recommendations to Council asto the sanctions that Council should impose on RusAF if it is determinedthat RusAF has breached its obligations under the Anti-Doping Rules, andwhether Congress should be asked to consider the expulsion of RusAF
from membership of World Athletics.

Rune Andersen, Taskforce Chair
22 November 20192