MOSCOW, Aug 18 Silver medalist of the 2017 World Championships in high jump Danil Lysenko apologized to Russian athletes for the forgery of documents, which led to the extension of the deprivation of the full status of the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF). «First of all, I would like to apologize for the situation that happened, to ask forgiveness from everyone who suffered from that bad story. If I had known that everything would turn out this way, then, of course, I would have acted differently,» Lysenko said in a video posted on the ARAF Telegram channel. On August 3, 2018, World Athletics opened a case against Lysenko due to an anti-doping rule violation regarding the availability of an athlete and suspended him from the competition. Later, the athlete presented documents according to which he did not pass the doping control due to circumstances beyond his control. The investigation revealed contradictions between Lysenko's testimony and the documents provided, which was regarded as falsification. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) suspended Lysenko until August 3, 2022. The CAS referees decided to make two more years suspended in connection with the «substantial assistance» that the Russian athlete provided to the independent body for the fight against negative phenomena in athletics (AIU).
