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maltatoday, SUNDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2015 Sport 55 ATHLETICS Athletics doping: IOC confident over Russia doping reform plans RUSSIA has set out a three- month road map to clean up its act, with the nation's Olympic Committee spearheading efforts to ensure a doping scandal does not prevent honest athletes from competing at the 2016 Olym- pics. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) voted overwhelmingly on Friday to suspend the Russian Athlet- ics Federation (ARAF) following allegations of widespread and state-sponsored doping. The allegations, made by a spe- cial commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), have caused the country's big- gest sporting scandal in several decades and could cost it a place at next year's Olympics in Rio. Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said on Saturday he had agreed a road map with IAAF head Sebastian Coe and that his nation would soon be compliant with the association's rules. "In three months we will once again go to the international federation to present ourselves as compliant with its standards," Mutko told Russian television. "We hope our team will be rein- stated." Russia's Olympic Commit- tee said in a statement it would take charge of a programme to reform the ARAF and Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), working with WADA and the IAAF. "The Russian Olympic Com- mittee is firmly convinced that honest athletes must participate in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro," said committee head Alexander Zhukov. "At the same time everyone who was involved in the use of illicit drugs, and contributed to it, should take full responsibil- ity." Mutko said elections to replace almost the entire ARAF leader- ship would be held in the next two months. Acting head Vadim Zelichenok was quick to announce he would not be standing, having earlier said he was prepared to step down to help his country recover from the doping scandal. Russia is a superpower in world athletics and finished second behind the United States in the track and field medal table at the 2012 Olympics in London. Pole-vaulter Yelena Isinbaye- va, who on Friday called for the IAAF not to punish honest ath- letes over the doping scandal in her nation, is the world record holder as well as a double Ol- ympic gold medallist and triple world champion. Gymnasts Larisa Latynina and Nikolai Andrianov, who compet- ed for the former Soviet Union, hold second and third places re- spectively on the list of all-time Olympic medal winners. International Olympic Com- mittee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said he was sure clean Rus- sian athletes would compete at the 2016 Games. "We are confident the initia- tives being proposed ... will en- sure compliance as soon as pos- sible," he added in a statement. President Vladimir Putin has used sporting successes to pro- mote his image of Russia as a re- surgent global power, portraying its hosting of the Winter Olym- pics in Sochi in 2014 as a symbol of a newly confident country. With national pride at stake, some officials have looked to def lect attention from the IAAF suspension, saying doping is a deep-rooted problem in inter- national sport and hinting that Russia might appeal against the ban at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne. "The problem is not Russian athletics, it's a global problem," Mutko said. "What's more, it started with Russia because we first informed WADA that the International Association of Athletics Federations hid sam- ples for decades." ARAF general secretary Mikhail Butov told R-Sport: "If there is something that doesn't satisf y us then there is sense in talking about an appeal. I am sure that Russia will go to the Olympic Games". Mutko and ARAF members will meet for emergency talks on Sunday, Tass news agency re- ported. The IAAF council, hosted by Coe, voted 22-1 in favour of suspending Russia after a three- hour teleconference on Friday, an unprecedented punishment for doping offences. In what some Russians see as a politically-motivated attack, Moscow will now be barred from hosting the world race walking and world junior championships next year. "Our athletes have become hostages to what is going on in the world now and the global community's attitude towards Russia," a Moscow resident told the press. Mutko said: "These athletes who cheat should be punished but healthy sportsmen, clean sportsmen, must be protected. The WADA report alleged sys- temic collusion between Rus- sian athletes and the country's anti-doping authorities fostered a deeply-rooted culture of drug cheating. It recommended suspending Russia until a new framework was put in place. "We will get the change we want and only then will Russian athletes return to international competition," Coe told reporters on Friday. The main athletics events in 2016 are the world indoor cham- pionships, the European cham- pionships and the Olympics. The first competition to be af- fected by the ban will be the Eu- ropean cross-country champi- onships in France in December. Coe said it was "entirely up to the Russian federation" whether the country would be able to make the required changes in time to return for the Olympics. "But we discussed and agreed that the whole system has failed the athletes," he said. "Not just in Russia but around the world." Pole-vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who on Friday called for the IAAF not to punish honest athletes over the doping scandal in her nation, is the world record holder as well as a double Olympic gold medallist and triple world champion. The Russian Olympic Committee is firmly convinced that honest athletes must participate in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro