From Inside the Games
Planned reforms due to be introduced by International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President Sebastian Coe have been unanimously supported by the sport’s six Area Associations following a meeting of the respective Presidents at Cap d’Ail in France.
Coe, the British two-times Olympic 1500 metres champion, has endured a tumultuous reign in charge since being elected in Beijing in August last year.
The 59-year-old has been accused of being aware of the corrupt work undertaken by predecessor Lamine Diack, who was arrested for alleged involvement in accepting bribes to cover up positive drugs tests involving Russian athletes in November.
Papa Massata Diack, Valentin Balakhnichev and Alexei Melnikov have all been banned from any involvement in the sport for life after the IAAF Ethics Commission ruled they were part of a blackmail plot that covered up Russian doping failures.
It has also been reported that Coe had passed on rumours of “brown envelopes” during the campaign in 2011 when London were bidding against Qatar’s capital Doha for the right to stage the 2017 World Athletics Championships and he was the IAAF vice-president.
Suggestions have arisen that Coe was the “senior IAAF official” UK Athletics chairman Ed Warner was referring to when he claimed he had been told of allegations of impropriety by the Doha bid.
These have both been denied.
The Briton has the support, however, of the heads of the six IAAF Area Associations from Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, North America and South America.
