Citing a “massive tier of risk across our sport” The World Athletics Council has unanimously agreed to sanction the Belarus Athletic Federation for aiding and abetting Russia’s war on Ukraine.
These sanctions, announced by World Athletics president Sebastian Coe include: no hosting of any international or European athletics events, no representation at Congress or in any decision which requires a Congressional vote, no accreditation to attend any World Athletics Series event, including the World Athletics Championships in the United States later this year and no involvement of Federation personnel in any official World Athletics development or professional program.
All of these sanctions begin immediately and without end until further notice.
On March 1 the World Athletics Council imposed similar sanctions against the Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF). RusAF has been suspended from World Athletics since 2015 due to a multitude of doping violations.
“These are not easy decisions and none of us undertook this decision lightly,” said Coe. “None of us want to prevent athletes from competing. That’s never our intention in sports, but this is such a different scale and different challenge.”
Coe said no thought was given to allowing them to compete as neutral athletes in the World Championships or any other event.
“We were very clear about that and the council was unanimous. It would be inconceivable to have athletes from Ukraine be excluded for obvious reasons,” he said.
“Unable to compete or train in an environment that is beyond compare and have athletes from two aggressor nations be given the full panoply. Everyone is standing shoulder to shoulder and sport needs to do that.”
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