Athletics doping scandal: Son of former IAAF president and ex-treasurer given lifetime bans

The Federal State Budgetary Institution 'Federal Scientific Center for Physical Culture and Sports' which houses the Moscow Antidoping Center in Moscow
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The son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack and the organisation’s former treasurer were today given lifetime bans from the sport for extorting money from an athlete to cover up doping.

Papa Massata Diack and Valentin Balaknichev, who was also head of the All-Russia Athletic Federation, were fined £17,000 for their role in blackmailing Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova for £225,000 so abnormalities in her biological passport would not be revealed.

Russian endurance coach Alexei Melnikov received the same suspension from the IAAF ethics commission ruling, which was announced at noon today following a three-day hearing in London before Christmas.

And former IAAF anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle received a lesser five-year ban from the sport and was fined £6,900 while each of the quartet were ordered to pay £30,000 to meet the costs of the investigation, which got under way in April 2014 following a signed statement by Shobukhova’s agent Andrey Baranov.

In its ruling, the commission, headed by Michael Beloff QC, said: “The panel considers in light of its findings that VB, AM and PMD should be banned for life; any lesser sanction would not meet the gravity of their offences.”

More revelations are expected next week with the publication of the World Anti‑Doping Agency independent commission’s second report while a French investigation is also ongoing into Diack, his sons, Dolle and Diack’s former lawyer Habib Cisse.

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