World Athletics Council meeting starts online on Tuesday. It could become historic: a working group led by Rune Andersen will present a regular report on the situation with the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF), it is expected that the restoration of its full membership will be recommended. However, Russian athletes may not return to the international arena even after this: the World Athletics board will also consider extending their suspension amid events in Ukraine.
The ARAF's problems began with the release of a series of films by German journalist Hajo Seppelt in late 2014 that alleged a doping system in Russian athletics. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has set up a commission led by Richard Pound to investigate the allegations. It led to the temporary suspension of the VFLA from full membership in World Athletics (then IAAF) from November 2015 and the ban on Russian athletes from participating in international competitions under their own flag.
The way to restore confidence
Later, the association formed a working group to restore the status of the ARAF, headed by the Norwegian Rune Andersen. She formulated a roadmap, the points of which the Russian side had to fulfill. In parallel, the association began to issue personal permits to athletes from Russia to participate in international tournaments in a neutral status. At the same time, some athletes could not get them, in particular, those who had a history of doping.
The process of restoring the status of the ARAF turned out to be very difficult after the story of the Russian high jumper Danil Lysenko. The silver medalist of the World Championship — 2017 violated anti-doping rules in 2018 in terms of his availability for doping control and was temporarily suspended from performances. Later, the athlete presented documents according to which he could not pass the doping control for good reasons. However, the international organization recognized the documents as falsified, and ARAF employees were accused of forging them.
In March 2020, the ARAF, having gone through a change of leadership (Dmitry Shlyakhtin was replaced as president by Evgeny Yurchenko), recognized the accusations against him as fair and officially apologized for his actions in the Lysenko case. The World Athletics Council accepted them and approved a new list of criteria for restoring the status of the ARAF, but fined the Russian side 10 million dollars (5 of them conditionally). This amount, plus other expenses ($6.31 million in total), was due by July 1, 2020.
However, by the appointed date, the amount was not transferred to the accounts of World Athletics, and the threat of complete exclusion from the membership of the international organization loomed before the ARAF. As a result, the fine, albeit belatedly, was nevertheless paid thanks to the help of the state, and World Athletics limited itself to a ban on issuing permits to participate in international tournaments in a neutral status. It was decided to resume this process only after the ARAF submits a new version of the plan for its recovery. The Russian side did this, and at the end of November 2020, a new president of the ARAF was elected, which was Petr Ivanov.
Soon, however, Ivanov had to temporarily stop fulfilling his duties, since after his appointment as deputy head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia, he entered the circle of persons who were prohibited from holding leadership positions in sports federations by decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The first vice-president of the organization, Irina Privalova, became the acting president of the ARAF. But this castling did not affect the recovery process: on March 1, 2021, World Athletics approved the plan for the return of the VFLA in rights and called this date «the beginning of a long journey to restore confidence in Russian athletics.»
At the end of 2021, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said that the ARAF is moving in the right direction and sanctions against it could be lifted in 2022. However, this did not happen. At the last council of World Athletics at the end of November last year, the suspension of the ARAF was again extended. But for the first time, Rune Andersen said that the VFLA is on the verge of recovery. «The organization was able to introduce an anti-doping culture, and the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) is working effectively to test athletes in sufficient numbers. ARAF also comes up with initiatives that are not included in the roadmap,» the Norwegian noted.
In October 2022, ARAF passed an independent audit. Andersen said that in March 2023, a final recommendation will be made to restore the status of the ARAF. At the same time, the head of the working group noted that «there are several issues» that need to be resolved before March. In particular, the working group would like to meet with Petr Ivanov, who, after the expiration of the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, returned to his duties as President of the ARAF in December 2022.
Sanctions — anti-doping and political
However, even if the World Athletics Council in March decides to restore the full-fledged status of the ARAF, this does not guarantee the immediate return of the Russians to the international arena. For more than a year, Russian and Belarusian athletes have been suspended from competitions under the auspices of World Athletics and the European Athletics Association (European Athletics). Coe confirmed that after the end of the procedures for the «anti-doping» part of the sanctions against Russian athletics, the issue of extending the «political» part will be considered.
And here, despite the call of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to work out the possibility for the Russians to perform, in particular in Asian competitions, the forecast for the decision of World Athletics is rather pessimistic. First, at the same end of November last year, Coe categorically stated that Russian athletes would be able to return to the international arena only after their country «leaves Ukraine.» And secondly, on March 15, European Athletics confirmed that the suspension of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the competition will remain in force until the end of the CBO. There is hardly any reason to believe that the decision of World Athletics on this issue will be different, although there is always hope for prudence.