MOSCOW — Russia could be back on the path to reinstatement for next year’s Olympic track and field competition after reaching an agreement with the IOC on anti-doping reforms.
A day after the IAAF voted to provisionally suspend Russia over its doping scandal, the International Olympic Committee produced a road map Saturday that it said should bring Russia’s track and field athletes back into the fold in time for the Games in Rio de Janeiro in August.
“We are confident that the initiatives being proposed by the (Russian Olympic Committee), with the responsible international organizations, WADA and the IAAF, will ensure compliance as soon as possible in order to provide participation of the clean Russian athletes at the Olympic Games,” IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement.
Bach gave his backing to ROC head Alexander Zhukov, who has been appointed to oversee reforms of Russia’s athletics federation, anti-doping agency and national drug test lab, all of which were implicated in a damning report issued Monday by an independent World Anti-Doping Agency panel.
The ROC “will coordinate all efforts in Russia to address the issues mentioned” in the WADA report, the IOC said, adding that all athletes, coaches and officials who are accused of involvement in doping must be punished.
“All doped athletes will be sanctioned. … All clean athletes will be protected,” the statement said.
The agreement between Bach and Zhukov follows a meeting between the two in Switzerland on Thursday, part of an intense lobbying effort by top Russian officials ever since the WADA panel’s report accused the country of running a vast state-sponsored doping program.
