From Inside the Games
Sebastian Coe could be questioned by a Parliamentary Select Committee again after evidence from David Bedford in the Combating Doping in Sport inquiry undermined claims made by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) President in December 2015.
Bedford, the former London Marathon race director and head of the IAAF Road Running Commission, was questioned today by members of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.
The proceedings centered around an email he sent to Coe in August 2014, first reported by the BBC and Daily Mail in June.
This contained a complaint that was written four months earlier Andrey Baranov, the agent of Russia’s Lilya Shoubukhova, the 2010 winner of the London Marathon and a three-time champion at the Chicago Marathon.
He outlined evidence that a group of officials surrounding the then IAAF President Lamine Diack had coerced the Russian into making payments in order to cover-up her failed drugs test.
It went against Coe’s assertion that he was unaware of these claims until they became the subject of a investigation by German broadcasters ARD in December 2014.
The IAAF President does not dispute receiving the email, but claimed to have forwarded it on without opening it.
Giving evidence today, Bedford stated that he sent the email to Coe in August 2014 with Shobukhova’s name included in the heading.
The former world 10,000 metres record holder claimed he but did not receive a response from the then IAAF vice-president to the email or text messages in the following months but broached the issue with Coe at a lunch on November 21.
He stated that he had attempted to set up a meeting between Coe and the lawyer Mike Morgan, who had been employed to represent Baranov and Shoubukhova.
Conservative MP Nigel Huddleston claimed the evidence provided by Bedford had undermined the claims made by Coe when he had sat before the Committee in December 2015.
The Committee have now expressed their intention for Coe to be recalled to face further questions before the end on January, with chairman Damian Collins MP sending a tweet confirming this.
