IAAF suspends three top officials over doping cover-ups

Three senior athletics officials have been provisionally suspended by the IAAF’s Ethics Board pending an investigation into their involvement in an alleged cover-up of Russian doping cases, the sport’s governing body said on Friday.

IAAF ethics board provisionally suspends deputy general-secretary Nick Davies, President Coe's closest aide pic.twitter.com/2k78GLjlhQ

— Dan Roan (@danroan) June 10, 2016

The most senior is Nick Davies, who was chief of staff to IAAF President Sebastian Coe, but stood down six months ago; the others are education official Jane Boulter-Davies and IAAF medical manager, Pierre-Yves Garnier.

An IAAF statement said the three had been provisionally suspended pending an investigation into a ‘potential breach of the IAAF’s code of ethics’.

The issue relates to an email reported to have been sent by former IAAF consultant Papa Massata Diack to his father and then-IAAF president Lamine Diack in July 2013.

In the email Papa Massata wrote that the three staff members were in receipt of or had knowledge of a cash payment made in order to withhold details of attempted cover-ups of Russian doping cases.

‘The orders for provisional suspension have been imposed in the interests of the integrity of the sport but do not prejudice the outcome of the investigations which are now to follow,’ the ethics board said in its statement.

Reuters