Russian doping: Athletics faces 'crisis' admits IAAF chief Diack

Speaking to the BBC, Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said: "It's a difficult crisis but we will put it behind us by cleaning all this."

In December, a German TV documentary claimed Russian officials systematically accepted payment from athletes to supply banned substances and cover up tests.

In his first broadcast interview since the allegations were made public, Diack said he was "shocked" and "disturbed" when he first heard the claims.

But the 81-year-old Senegalese official insisted allegations that 99% of Russian athletes are doping were "a joke" and "ridiculous".

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

German television station WDR broadcast three documentaries alleging that IAAF officials were implicated in covering up doping in Russia.

Those claims are now being examined by the IAAF's ethics commission, which will decide whether Russian anti-doping officials, its own treasurer and even the son of its president are guilty of wrongdoing.

But Diack - who will stand down as IAAF president in August after 16 years as the most powerful figure in track and field - denied knowledge of any cover-up.

"I'm convinced I know my department. I know how they work very, very hard about the fight against doping, and I didn't see any reason to make a cover-up of a doping case," he said.

Athletics has a chequered history of drug scandals, from East Germany's years of state-imposed blanket doping, through to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco) affair. However, it was one of the first sports to introduce the biological passport.

These latest claims of widespread wrongdoing stem principally from former Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) official Vitaly Stepanov and his wife Yulia (nee Rusanova), formerly an 800m runner who was banned for doping.

They allege that leading Russian athletics officials supplied banned substances in exchange for 5% of an athlete's earnings and colluded with doping control officers to hush up and falsify tests.

(BBC)