Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Tuesday
President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday Russia needed to conduct its own investigation into allegations its athletes had systematically taken performance-enhancing substances and that someone needed to take personal responsibility for the problem.
Former cycling champion Lance Armstrong on Thursday agreed to pay $5 million to settle a federal suit claiming he defrauded his sponsor, the U.S. Postal Service, by using performance-enhancing drugs, his attorney and federal officials said.
Double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva's return to competition was frustrated by a leg injury on Saturday when she had to drop out of the Russian Grand Prix in her home city of Volgograd. Isinbayeva, Olympic champion in 2004 and 2008, had been due to return to competition for the first time since the birth of her daughter in June 2014. "I really hate to disappoint people but today when I was warming up I felt a sharp pain while making a jump and I understood that if I continued to jump I could tear a muscle," Isinbayeva, 33, told the All Sport news agency. "It's an old injury in my Achilles tendon in my lead-off leg," she added.
Britain's double Olympic champion Mo Farah has said he will continue to work with coach Alberto Salazar who is being investigated by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
Yulia Stepanova, an international runner who was herself suspended for doping offences, and her husband Vitaly, a former Russian anti-doping agency official, secretly recorded Russian coaches and athletes over almost two years describing how they used performance-enhancing drugs.
Russia's new athletics head said his priority was to ensure Russian sportsmen and women compete at the 2016 Olympics as the sport tries to tackle rampant doping. "This is not an easy time for Russia, it is not an easy time for athletics," said Dmitry Shlyakhtin, who was elected as the new president of the Russian Athletics Federation (VFLA) on Saturday. "Going to the Olympic Games is task number one."
A Japanese sprint canoeist is facing a life ban after admitting to spiking a rival's drink with an anabolic steroid to scuttle his Olympic dreams, the Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday.
Jamaican sprinter Sherone Simpson, who tested positive for a banned substance last year, told a disciplinary panel on Tuesday that she saw no "red flags" before taking a supplement supplied by her trainer.
His dream of representing the country in Rio Olympics shattered after a verdict of the CAS, a devastated Narsingh Yadav, on Friday, said that he will do everything to prove his innocence.
Tainted wrestler Narsingh Yadav was exonerated of doping charges by the National Anti-Doping Agency panel, probing the positive tests on his urine samples on Monday. It ruled "there is no negligence on the athlete's part and he is a victim of sabotage".
The suspense over wrestler Narsingh Yadav's participation in the Rio Olympic Games was prolonged further after the National Anti-Doping Agency deferred its final verdict on the doping scandal to Monday.
Calls grow for global athletics probe after widespread doping allegations.
Leading sports powerbrokers gathered at the International Olympic Committee's headquarters on Tuesday morning to discuss further crackdowns on drug cheats before the Rio Games.
'I'm always surprised when I walk off court after a final and I'm like 'where is anti-doping?'
Olympic quick takes - Brazil lifter Reis suspended from Games after positive drug test.
Banned for four years and disgraced after being eliminated from the Olympics Village, dope-tainted wrestler Narsingh Yadav vowed to take his battle to the Prime Minister's Office. His dream of representing the country in the Games shattered after he was slapped with a four-year ban by Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) for flunking a dope test after WADA challenged the clean chit given to him by NADA, a devastated Narsingh Yadav said that he will fight till the end. "Meri toh naam badnam hui, isse pura desh pe kala dhabba lag gaya hai (My name has been tarnished, not just me, this ban is a blot on India). Chahe mujhe phaasi ho jaye, mein iski chhanbin karwaoonga, din-raat ek kar doonga (Let me be hanged, I will take this to higher courts and will leave no stone unturned)," the 74kg freestyle wrestler told PTI.
Shuttler P V Sindhu scripted a new chapter in Indian Olympic history with unprecedented feat but the embattled Narsingh Yadav's dreams lay in tatters after being slapped with a four-year doping ban on a bitter-sweet day for the country at the Rio Games.
At loggerheads with the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) on the testing of Indian cricketers, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), on Wednesday, discussed the matter with Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore
UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) said it was "deeply concerned and shocked" by a Sunday Times report in which a British doctor alleged he had prescribed banned performance-enhancing drugs to 150 sportsmen including several Premier League footballers.
Summary of sports events and persons who made news on Wednesday
The Kremlin's spokesman said on Wednesday that a failed drug test by Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova should not be "projected onto" the whole of Russian sport.
The top two in the 1998 Tour de France - Italian Marco Pantani and Germany's Jan Ullrich - were taking the banned blood booster EPO, a French Senate inquiry into sports doping said on Wednesday.
Promoters of the Russian F1 Grand Prix, ROSGONKI, said that the contract for the Sochi race was signed in 2010, long before the start of WADA's probing and are confident that the race will be held next year as well
NADA DG added that "BCCI's explanation will be discussed as to whether it will be counted as one of three filing failures or not. It will be decided on the explanation given and how they (BCCI) proceed from here."
The Board of Control for Cricket in India is unlikely to come under the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) ambit anytime soon despite the constant push from the International Cricket Council, said the Indian board's acting president, C K Khanna.
'I find, in all this matter, a very unfair treatment... I don't know if I will be able to find the strength and the desire to play tennis again, after all this'
Jemima Sumgong, who last year became the first Kenyan woman to win Olympic gold in the marathon, has tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO in an out-of-competition test carried out by the IAAF, the sport's governing body said on Thursday.
Former world number one Maria Sharapova has been invited to play at the Madrid Open in May, which takes place less than two weeks after her 15-month doping ban expires, tournament organisers said on Wednesday.
The under-fire Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) has appointed a new executive director just three days before the start of a World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) audit of its operations, the Jamaican government said on Friday.
China's world and Olympic swimming champion Sun Yang served a three-month ban earlier this year after testing positive for a banned stimulant, the China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) said on Monday.
The doping suspension of Croatian tennis player Marin Cilic has reportedly been reduced from nine months to four months by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), making him eligible to return to playing from October 26 this year.
'There are so many guys who are hungry, want to win, are competitive, really talented and great athletes. It doesn't necessarily have to be one guy.'
A sweeping reform package that changes how the scandal-hit governing body of world athletics operates was overwhelmingly passed at a special Congress on Saturday.
Sensational media reports of widespread blood doping in world athletics has also pointed the finger of suspicion at Indian athletes, though experts in the country are not very clear about how it could have happened.
If reports are to be believed, a renowned track and field athlete from Haryana has failed a dope test conducted by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) last month.
Lance Armstrong's promise to come clean about doping is "a little late", the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said on Thursday, accusing the disgraced cyclist of trying to use events to "gain advantage".
There will no be Russian athletes at the 2016 IAAF world indoor championships in Portland, Oregon next March, a source with knowledge of the decision said on Thursday.
None of the athletes Salazar has worked with were mentioned in Monday's report.
BCCI had expressed concern about security during the World Cup in a letter to the ICC after last month's attack in the disputed region that killed 40 Indian paramilitary troops.
