IAAF Under Pressure Over New Corruption Claims

BERLIN, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Nov, 2016 ) : The wanted son of ousted international athletics president Lamine Diack took millions of Euros from Russian competitors in return for "total protection" from failed doping tests, a new investigation said Friday.

Germany's ARD television and France's Le Monde newspaper said six athletes each paid between 300,000 and 700,000 euros ($318,000-$740,000) to top officials including Papa Massata Diack who is wanted by French authorities but in hiding in his native Senegal.

His father, Lamine Diack, is under house arrest in France. "The organised cover-up of suspected doping in the world of track and field has as such assumed a previously unimagined scale," said ARD.

"And once again, it is primarily athletes from one nation under scrutiny: Russia.

" The two media organisations said their information were based on files held by Paris financial crime prosecutors who are investigating corruption allegations against the Diacks.

At least six Russian athletes had paid to have their suspicious doping test results covered up, including long-distance runner Liliya Shobukhova, walkers Valeriy Borchin, Olga Kaniskina and Vladimir Kanaikin and Sergey Kirdyapkin as well as steeplechase runner Yuliya Zaripova, the report said.

The media organisations also quoted letters sent by the then president of Russia's athletics federation, Valentin Balakhnichev, who had threatened to go public with the doping deal if the IAAF fails to offer the immunity it had promised.