Athletics and Russian sport are to come under attack today when a report is published concerning allegations of blackmail and doping scams.
Olympic sports will be bracing for severe damage when a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) inquiry delivers findings into claims of top officials’ complicity in extorting athletes and concealing drug cheats.
Former International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) president Lamine Diack was last week put under criminal suspicion of corruption and money laundering by French prosecutors acting on evidence provided by the WADA-appointed inquiry team. The 82-year-old Senegalese left office in August after 16 years.
“This report is going to be a real game-changer for sport,” said Richard McLaren, a Canadian lawyer who sits on the three-member inquiry team chaired by International Olympic Committee (IOC) veteran Dick Pound.
“This is a whole different scale of corruption than the FIFA scandal or the IOC scandal in respect to Salt Lake City,” McLaren said in comments published by Western University in Canada, where he is a professor of law.
The Pound panel is to present some of its findings at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland, today, though details of the French case is not being published.
Russia is to be targeted by the report just over two years since Moscow hosted the 2013 Athletics World Championships and less than two years since the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.
WADA formed the independent inquiry after German broadcaster ARD aired the documentary Top secret doping: How Russia makes its winners in December last year. It alleged systematic doping across athletics and other summer and winter Olympic sports.
The program implicated officials in Russia’s athletics federation, the anti-doping agency and a WADA-accredited laboratory in Moscow in acts of bribery to hush up positive doping tests, falsify tests and supply banned drugs.
ARD alleged that former Chicago Marathon winner Liliya Shobukhova paid 450,000 euros (US$520,000) to Russian officials linked to then-IAAF treasurer Valentin Balakhnichev, who threatened her with a doping ban before the London Olympics.
When Shobukhova was banned for two years last year, her husband received a 300,000 euros refund payment linked to Balakhnichev, the program said.
McLaren suggested the allegations are more serious than the FIFA bribery cases, which did not affect the outcome of World Cup matches.
“Unlike FIFA, where you have a bunch of old men who put a whole lot of extra money in their pockets, here you potentially have a bunch of old men who put a whole lot of extra money in their pockets — through extortion and bribes — but also caused significant changes to actual results and final standings of international athletics competitions,” McLaren said.
In the French case, Diack’s legal adviser at the IAAF, Habib Cisse, and the former head of the IAAF’s anti-doping program, Gabriel Dolle, had also been detained and charged with corruption.
Diack’s son, Papa Massata Diack, who was an IAAF marketing consultant, skipped a meeting with French prosecutors who said on Friday he is thought to have played a “very active” role in the alleged corruption worth more than 1 million euros.
The IAAF ethics commission is also investigating the claims and started its secret prosecution before the ARD program aired. It has scheduled hearings in London next month, though it is unclear who is to attend.
The Moscow laboratory oversaw testing for last year’s Sochi Olympics and is scheduled to lead the anti-doping program for FIFA when Russia hosts the 2018 World Cup.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite