Russian Roulette: Five more suspensions, how many chambers are left in the doping gun?

Copyright – 2015 – Athletics Illustrated

According to TASS news agency five more Russian athletes have been suspended due to the detection of performance enhancing drugs and or Athlete Biological Passport (ABP) anomalies.

They are: hammer thrower Maria Bespalova, marathon runner Maria Konovalova, middle-distance runners Vlas Bredikhin and Yaroslav Kholopov, and race walker Yevgeny Nushtayev.

The bans reportedly range from six months to four years. The timing and the optics of the new suspensions are intriguing, as new president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) – the sport’s governing body, Lord Sebastion Coe on November 3rd was in Russia attending the All Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) annual congress, discussing doping, modernising the sport and handing out awards at their gala. Meanwhile an investigation into Russian doping has wrapped up and the findings will be presented shortly.

On November 9th, the founder and past president of the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) Dick Pound will be releasing the details of his investigation that has taken over nine months to complete. He and fellow Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren and German, Günter Younger, who is the Head of Department of Cybercrime with Bavarian Landeskriminalamt (LKA) were tasked with investigating apparent systematic doping going on in Russia as broadcast by ARD Television earlier this year.

This brings the total of currently banned, recently banned or recently re-instated Russian athletes to nearly 100.

List of some of the currently suspended Russian athletes, why they were suspended and the sport that they compete in, the list does not include the recently suspended names above:

Related stories:

– Ban Russia Now.
– Raw and uncut version of blockbuster Russian interview that blew the story open about apparent systematic Russian doping.
– Major doping scandal brewing in Russia.