Corruption

It’s not just Russia: Britain helped create this corruption in sport

The Russians will go to Rio next year. Whatever decision emerges from the meeting of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) on Friday, the Russians will go to the 2016 Olympics. If sporting stars cheat they are banned. If sporting countries cheat they should be banned. But when everyone cheats, what to do? The answer is to panic, lie and then cover your tracks.

If there’s one thing the Russians know about international sport, it is where others have hidden their skeletons. Shut out the Russians and the whole murky edifice might come crashing down. Britain’s Lord Coe, new president of the IAAF, based in that well-known athletics centre, Monaco, said he knew nothing about the doping saga. Indeed, he claimed it was all got up by the press, until the press and the IAAF’s own investigator, Dick Pound, showed otherwise.