Embroiled Russian Athletics Chief Resigns

(ATR) Russian Athletics Federation chief Valentin Balakhnichev resigned Feb. 17 in the midst of doping scandals that have plagued the organization.

"I failed to confront in full the rise of doping problems in Russia," Balakhnichev said in a statement reported by AFP.

"I understand that as the federation president I'm personally responsible for it. That was the reason of my decision."

Balakhnichev is the second high profile resignation from the Russian Athletics Federation. Athletics coach Valentin Maslakov resigned on Jan. 23.

Allegations of rampant doping within Russian athletics athletes came in December from a pair of German TV documentarieson the subject.

IAAF president Lamine Diack told BBC Sport that he was "shocked" after hearing the allegations made by the German documentaries.

"I cannot accept that somebody came and said in Russia it's 99% cheating. It's not true," Diack said.

"I understand, after this kind of crisis, people are saying, 'OK, what are they doing, is it right or not?' but I think we have to be absolutely clear that our athletes are 90% to 95% clean."

Former Word Anti-Doping Agency president and IOC member Dick Pound is guiding an investigationinto the Russian Athletics Federation this year.

Pound told Around the Rings in December that he does not expect the investigation to run beyond the end of 2015.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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