Publications
Partners
London - World athletics chief Sebastian Coe wants the Russian federation to respond by the end of this week to a damning report into systematic dope cheating that could see the country's athletes banned from the Olympics.
The report by a World Anti-Doping Agency independent commission, published on Monday, called for Russian athletes to be suspended from all competitions, including the 2016 Olympic Games.
"I will seek an explanation for the allegations and the (International Association of Athletics Federations) Council will then make a judgement," Coe, the IAAF president, told journalists in a conference call.
"I am completely shocked by the allegations.
"My instinct remains to encourage
Coe later said the IAAF Council was due to meet to discuss the crisis on Friday.
In an earlier statement, Coe labelled the report "alarming" and said: "We need time to properly digest and understand the detailed findings included in the report.
"However, I have urged the IAAF council to start the process of considering sanctions against (the Russian federation)."
WADA also called for five Russian athletes -- including 800m Olympic winner Mariya Savinova -- to be given lifetime bans, suggesting the presence of doped athletes had "sabotaged" the 2012 Games in London.
Coe said he did not have the authority to expel a nation from track and field, the centrepiece of any Olympics, come next year's Games in Rio.
"It isn't for the IAAF to discuss Olympic representation," Coe, a 1500m gold medallist for Britain at both the 1980 and 1984 Games, said in the conference call, adding this was a matter for the International Olympic Committee.
Responding to the report's claims of "sabotage" at the last Olympics, London 2012 supremo Coe said: "If we (the IAAF) have got failures in our internal governance processes, we've got to fix those."
