Russian athletics takes case to court over IAAF reinstatement

Russian athletics, emboldened by WADA's lifting of the three-year ban on Russia's anti-doping agency (RUSADA), has demanded to have its ban from track and field terminated.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Russian Athletics Federation (RUSAF) said it had filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) the previous day.

The statement said the appeal pointed to the "unfounded decision" to put several criteria on the RUSAF restoration roadmap including the recognition by the Russian authorities of their involvement in the scheme for concealing the use of doping by Russian athletes.

"The unreasonable implementation of these criteria and their presence on the roadmap for RUSAF's restoration is in our view wrong, because it goes beyond RUSAF's competencies," the statement said.

Russian athletics chief Dmitry Shlyakhtin also sent the letter to Sebastian Coe, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), informing him he is taking the case to the CAS, the Times reported.

- Ban no longer relevant ? -
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The IAAF told The Times in light of the letter: "We have led the way to fight for clean athletes and we will continue to do so."
"The Russian authorities must (also) provide access to the data from testing of samples at the Moscow lab from 2011 to 2015, so that the Athletics Integrity Unit can determine whether the suspicious findings reported in the Moscow lab's database should be pursued."