IAAF Taskforce report to IAAF Council, 26 November 2017 / Rune Andersen. - International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). - Monaco : IAAF, 2017
The IAAF Council suspended RusAF from membership in November 2015, after a WADA Independent Commission concluded there was a systemic and deeply-rooted culture of doping in Russian athletics. The Council decided that, in order to be reinstated to membership, RusAF must demonstrate that:
- (i) RusAF complies in full with the World Anti-Doping Code and IAAF Anti-Doping Rules;
- (ii) the IAAF and RUSADA (the Russian national anti-doping organisation) are able to conduct their anti-doping programmes in Russia (in particular, drug-testing) effectively and without interference; and
- (iii) as a result, the reintegration of Russian athletes into international competitions will not jeopardise the integrity of those competitions (the 'Reinstatement Conditions').
A number of specific 'Verification Criteria' were identified that would have to be met as part of this task. And in April 2017 the Council approved a 'Roadmap' proposed by the Taskforce that identified six specific conditions to be met in order for the Taskforce to be able to recommend RusAF's reinstatement.
The current status (in summary) is that most but not all of the Verification Criteria have been met (meeting them all is the first condition in the Roadmap). Of the five remaining conditions in the Roadmap, one has been fully met to date (support for the Clean Sport Movement), two others have only been partly met (satisfactory testing, and a solution to the problem of enforcement of provisional suspensions of coaches), and two have not been met at all (acknowledgement of McLaren findings; reinstatement of RUSADA).
