Russia Taskforce Report to Council Meeting of 23 March 2023 / Rune Andersen. - Monaco : World Athletics, 2023
The World Atletics Council approved the Russia Taskforce’s recommendation that RusAF, which has been suspended for seven years due to doping, be reinstated after meeting all the requirements of the Reinstatement plan, which has been confirmed by an independent audit.
However RusAF will be required to comply with a set of 35 'Special Conditions' that are intended to ensure that RusAf’s anti-doping reforms remain in place and continue to operate effectively.
These Special Conditions are designed to enable the Athletics Integrity Unit to monitor, evaluate, communicate, mentor, oversee, and assist RusAF and its external stakeholders to ensure they maintain good governance practices and to protect RusAF from external pressures and attempts to influence or control its functioning.
They focus on four areas: organisational good governance, protection from inappropriate external influence and control, operational capability and capacity (with a particular emphasis on ethical and anti-doping requirements, and change in the regions), and budget allocation and fiscal management.
These Special Conditions are intended be applied for a period of three years, with a review at the end of that period to determine whether or not it is necessary to maintain those conditions (as they are or with variations) for a further period.
Totalling 35 separate monitoring and evaluation measures, the special conditions cover: organisational governance, presidium leadership oversight, anti-doping, cultural change in the regions, engagement with extTaskforce Report to the Councilernal stakeholders, ethics, anti-corruption and anti-conflicts of interest, fiscal management.
Further, the Athletics Integrity Unit, has determined that RusAF should be categorised as a Category ‘A’ member federation after its reinstatement.
That means that RusAF will have to comply not only with the general obligations applicable to all member federations that are set out in WA ADR 15.4 but also with the special obligations applicable to Category ‘A’ member federations that are set out in WA ADR 15.5. These federations are subject to greater scrutiny and more testing requirements.
The Taskforce confirmed that RusAF has paid all of the costs of the reinstatement process until the end of 2022. World Athletics will invoice RusAF in early April for the costs incurred by World Athletics in January-March, and the prompt payment of that invoice will be one of the Special Conditions.
RusAF must also pay all of the costs incurred by the AIU in overseeing RusAF’s compliance with the Category A requirements and the Special Conditions over the next three years, as well as any World Athletics costs in connection with this oversight.
As a consequence of these decisions, the Authorised Neutral Athlete (ANA) programme will be discontinued, and the Doping Review Board, which rules on ANA applications, will be stood down.
The Russia Taskforce, having completed its work, will be disbanded and the two international experts who have advised it will be stood down.
