The nerve of disgraced former marketing employee of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and two others (see below) have the gall to fight their lifetime bans in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Perhaps they are displaying sociopathic tendencies. If nothing else, they are short on shame and highly arrogant.
Papa Massata Diack, Valentin Balakhnichev and Alexei Melnikov will all contest their life bans from athletics at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, it has been confirmed today.
The trio were all handed the ultimate sanction by the IAAF Ethics Commission last month which ruled they were part of a blackmail plot that covered up Russian doping failures.
They were all charged in relation to payments totalling approximately £435,000 ($634,000/€583,000) made by Russia’s Liliya Shobukhova, the 2010 London Marathon winner and three-time Chicago Marathon champion, in order to hide violations.
Balakhnichev, the former All-Russia Athletic Federation (ARAF) President and the Soviet Union national athletics coach from 1978 to 1984, had previously announced his intention to appeal.
Today, however, is the first confirmation that Diack and Melnikov will be doing the same.
Papa Massata Diack, the marketing consultant son of former IAAF President Lamine Diack, is wanted for alleged corruption and money laundering in France and is currently in his home country Senegal.
A “red notice” for his arrest has been issued by Interpol but Senegalese Prime Minister Mahammad Boun Abdallah Dionne said that he would not be extradited.
