ENLARGE Top officials in the international governing body of track and field were aware of the systematic state-sponsored doping of Russian athletes and helped to cover it up, a commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency found in a report released Thursday[7].
The report, the second resulting from a year-long ethics probe by WADA, found that the former president, treasurer, and head of the medical and antidoping department and others in the International Association of Athletics Federations engaged in corrupt practices that also involved athletes, including a Turkish Olympian.
"The corruption was imbedded in the organiz ation," the report said. "It cannot be ignored or dismissed as attributable to the odd renegade acting on his own."
In a statement Thursday, the IAAF said it "fully acknowledges and accepts the extreme gravity of the Commission's findings" and will incorporate the report's recommendations into an ongoing governance review.
The commission said IAAF's top officials, including its chief medical officer, deliberately stalled or delayed the blood samples of Russian athletes that likely involved doping. "Their actions allowed dirty Russian athletes to compete and alter the results on the playing field," the report said. "This conduct has the same effect as a cover up."
The findings are the latest in ongoing concerns about the integrity of track and field, a sport that has been mired in controversy for years and under a microscope since a November report from the WADA commission. Allegations from that report, including that Russia engaged for y ears in state-sponsored doping, led to an indefinite ban for the nation's track and field federation from international competition including the coming Olympics in Rio.
Russian track officials opted not to appeal the ban and began meetings this week with the IAAF officials to address reforms in the hopes that its track federation could be reinstated[8] before the start of the Games in August.
"Russia has to change conduct and it's going to be verified," said Dick Pound, chairman of the three-person commission that prepared the report, at a news conference in Germany.
In a detailed, 30-page response to the earlier WADA commission report, the IAAF on Monday conceded that there were "unexplained and suspicious delays" in four doping cases brought to the IAAF but strongly denied that any doping case was ever covered up.
Since the November report, IAAF has tried to address concerns about its integrity. Earlier this month, an independent ethics commission of the IAAF issued lifetime bans to four track executives and a five-year ban to former IAAF antidoping chief, Gabriel Dollé, whose conduct was extensively chronicled in Thursday's report.
And in November, current IAAF President Sebastian Coe relinquished a consulting role with [9]Nike[10] Inc. [11] amid criticism that the services he gave to the sportswear company presented a conflict of interest.
The commission Thursday expanded its allegations of misconduct at the federation beyond the Russian case. It alleged that two sons of former IAAF president Lamine Diack, in coordination with Mr. Dollé, approached Turkish runner Asli Cakir Alptekin, the 2012 Olympic 1,500 meter champion, to extort money to cover up positive doping results. Ms. Alptekin has since been stripped of her gold medal.
"We may only have examined the tip of the iceberg with respect to the athletes that have been extorted," said Richard McLaren, a commission member.
In delivering the findings Thursday, Mr. Pound described a system of corruption that touched nearly every top official at the federation but said he was convinced Mr. Coe was in the dark on the details of the corruption.
"I am pretty sure at the time it was said Lord Coe had not the faintest idea of these activities," Mr. Pound said.
Mr. Pound said given the concentration of power at the IAAF, the infrequency of meetings and the limited information council members received from the president, Mr. Coe's claims that he didn't know of the corruption were credible.
Of those implicated in Thursday's report, several are under investigation in France, including Mr. Dollé, Mr. Diack and Mr. Diack's legal counsel Habib Cissé. The French prosecutor for the case, which was undertaken in November, said Thursday that all three have been instructed to remain in France and have surrendered their passports. According to its website, Interpol has also posted a wanted person's alert for Papa Massata Diack, Mr. Diack's son who had served as a marketing consultant to the IAAF.
—Joshua Robinson contributed to this article.
Write to Sara Germano at sara.germano@wsj.com[12] and Matthew Futterman at matthew.futterman@wsj.com[13]
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