IAAF clears 11 Russian athletes to compete as neutrals ahead of World Athletics Championships 2019

Paris: Eleven more Russian athletes have been cleared to compete internationally just two weeks ahead of the world championships in Doha, the IAAF announced Tuesday. Russia was barred from international competition in 2015 over a vast state-run doping conspiracy but athletes subsequently deemed clean have been allowed to compete as neutrals. [caption id=“attachment_4456383” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image of IAAF. Reuters[/caption] Nineteen competed as neutrals at the 2017 world championships in London and 29 at the 2018 European championships in Berlin. In a statement the IAAF said a total of 128 Russian competitors had been cleared to compete in 2019 but the Russian athletics federation remains banned. The latest athletes to win clearance include six women: Kseniya Aksyonova (400m), Irina Ivanova (pole vault), Sardana Trofimova (marathon), Anna Tropina (3000m steeplechase), Yuliya Turova (20km race walk) and Nataliya Aksenova (high jump). The five men also cleared to compete are Mikhail Akimenko (high jump), Vladislav Panasenkov (javelin), Dmitriy Sorokin (triple jump), Anatoliy Rybakov (5000/10,000m), and Konstantin Shabanov (110m hurdles). The IAAF will address the question of whether to the reintegrate the Russian federation at its council meeting in Doha on September 23, while data from the Russian anti-doping laboratory covering the 2011-2015 period when state-sponsored doping was prevalent is still being analysed.