World athletics body IAAF on Tuesday upheld a ban against Russia's athletics federation over doping in the country, it said. Russia's athletics federation (RUSAF) has been suspended since 2015 over a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that found evidence of widespread, state-sponsored doping in the sport. The IAAF said Russia's anti-doping agency (RUSADA) still needed to meet criteria, including access to data on Russian athletes in a Moscow lab, before the ban could be lifted. Since then some individual Russian athletes, however, have been allowed to compete internationally as neutrals provided they met certain criteria that showed they had operated in a dope-free environment. But the national athletics team was banned from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The IAAF's Russia task force head, Rune Andersen, had said in July that RUSAF had made significant but not complete progress in meeting the reinstatement requirements. To be reinstated, the IAAF has said Russia must acknowledge the findings of the WADA-commissioned McLaren report that doping in the country was state-sponsored and must also provide access to the data from testing of samples at the RUSADA Moscow laboratory from 2011-2015. Russia has accepted there was extensive doping in the country, but its authorities have continued to deny any of it was state sponsored. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA have both reinstated Russia. WADA's controversial reinstatement in September this year was on the condition that Russia recognize the findings of its report and allow access to RUSADA's stored urine samples. Failure to provide access to the full data from the Moscow lab by Dec. 31 could lead to another suspension, WADA has warned. (For more sports news and updates, follow Ahram Online Sports on Twitter at @AO_Sports and on Facebook at AhramOnlineSports.)
