Canadian race walker Evan Dunfee 'overwhelmingly relieved' IAAF upheld ban on Russia

When Canadian race walker Evan Dunfee lines up at the start line for his event at the Olympic Games in August, he hopes to be standing among a clean group of athletes.

With Friday's monumental decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations to bar the Russian track and field team from this summer’s Rio Olympics, he believes he’s one step closer to that happening.

“While Russia’s problems don’t end with track and field, and track and field’s problems don’t end with Russia, this decision means that I’ll personally be standing on the start line in Rio with a cleaner group of athletes,” Dunfee wrote in an email to Yahoo Canada Sports.“Standing on the start line in Rio knowing that I’m racing against a much cleaner field gives me greater confidence that I can achieve my life long dream of standing on that podium.”

Dunfee said he was “overwhelmingly relieved” to hear the IAAF would uphold the ban, reprimanding the team accused of participating in a widespread doping program in a report issued by the World Anti-Doping Agency in November.

The decision from the sport’s governing body was made after a task force designed to oversee the country’s reform measures found the Russian Athletics Federation had not met the reinstatement requirements to be eligible to compete in international competition. The ruling means the Russians, who have been suspended from international events since November, will be unable to compete in the European Championships next month along with the Summer Games.

“Although good progress has been made, the IAAF Council was unanimous that RusAF had not met the reinstatement conditions and that Russian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public. As a result, RusAF has not been reinstated to membership of the IAAF at this stage,” said IAAF president Sebastian Coe.

The International Olympic Committee, who has the power to adjust the decision, will meet to discuss the matter next week, though it’s expected the ruling will stand, pending a potential Russian appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

This news comes a day after Athletics Canada released a letter addressed to Coe, asking the IAAF to not reinstate the Russian team ahead of Rio. “We encourage the IAAF to err on the side of caution to protect the integrity of our sport and the Olympic movement,” the letter read.

Athletics Canada said in a tweet Friday that they “applaud” the actions taken by the IAAF.

As for Dunfee, who is set to compete in the 20-kilometre and 50-kilometre race walk in Rio, he hopes this action leads to fundamental change for Russian sport.

“My biggest hope with this decision is that the younger generation of athletes in Russia, that has access to all the same information that we do in terms of news and facts, can make the conscious decision not to dope and that young generation will lead a charge of clean athletes in Russia,” he wrote.

“I believe it may take a decade or more before we see a true cultural shift and there are many actions, like those being taken now, that can help fix the problem along the way, but until that cultural change comes, these solutions will be Band-Aids on an open wound.”

The IAAF, however, did pass a rule amendment stating that if an individual athlete can, “clearly and convincingly show that they are not tainted by the Russian system” they may apply to compete as a neutral athlete. Athletes who made an “extraordinary contribution to the fight against doping” such as whistle blower Yuliya Stepanova, can apply for the same permissions.

In a joint statement, Beckie Scott, the chair of the WADA Athlete Committee and former Canadian Olympic cross-country skier and IOC Athlete Commission Chair Claudia Bokel said the IAAF verdict symbolized that “voices of the clean athletes have been heard.”

“We recognize that this decision is only one step in the process of ensuring that the Rio Olympic Games will have a level playing field. But we are heartened to see that the facts as presented by WADA and the IAAF task force have been considered thoroughly, and that the evidence has led the IAAF to make decisions based on integrity - maintaining clean sport as a central policy.”

In a coincidental and poignant twist, Dunfee pointed out that one day before this ruling came down, his fellow race walk competitor Jared Tallent, from Australia, received his Olympic gold medal in the 50-km race walk from 2012 after it was discovered that Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin, who crossed the finish line ahead of Tallent in London, had tested positive for doping.

“This decision today helps to ensure that four years from now, we won’t be having to right the same injustices again,” he wrote.