IAAF Council Member Defends Coe

(ATR) Sylvia Barlag is defending IAAF president Seb Coe’s efforts to reform the athletics federation currently inundated with issues involving doping and governance.

In comments to the Times of London, WADA Independent Commission chairman Richard Pound says Coe and his colleagues should have dealt with these issues "a long time ago".

Council member Berlag says Coe has confronted the problems facing the IAAF.

"Seb championed the establishment of the Ethics Commission and Code on the IAAF Council," says Barlag, from the Netherlands.

"I’d been on the council for two years and especially considering he’d come straight off leading the London Olympics he impressively drove the process forward with us."

However, Pound believes Coe and vice president Sergey Bubka could have done more to initiate change while serving under former president Lamine Diack who is currently in the custody of French authorities.

"Coe and Bubka were there," Pound told the Times.

"They had an opportunity a long time ago to address issues of governance, and you saw from the International Olympic Committee what happens if you don't do that," he says, referring to the Salt Lake City vote-buying scandal.

In December, Coe told British Parliament that his role as vice president was minimal due to his role organizing the London 2012 Games.

"I was aware we had a [doping] problem, but the specific numbers, I did not," Coe told Parliament. Pound says this is no excuse.

"It's easy enough if you want to get a governance review. They had a (19th-century) constitution in a 21st-century organization," he argues.

Around the Rings understands that there is some confusion among IAAF officials about why Pound would offer incendiary remarks about Coe as the IAAF and WADA are both working together to protect clean sport.

"Without the Independent Commission the IAAF would not have had the mechanisms in place to investigate these matters which resulted in the sanctions which were delivered yesterday," says Barlag, referencing the three lifetime bans handed out by the IAAF on Thursday.

Pound is set to release the second part of the Independent Commission report next Thursday, focusing more on the IAAF officials involved in the doping cover-ups as opposed to the violations of the All-Russian Athletics Federation exposed in part one.

Written by KevinNutley

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