Russia's national head coach Valentin Maslakov

He claims the provisional suspension of seven woman athletes by the IAAF are not the substitution of doping samples,but
political reasons are behind it.
"It was framed..Its political..."He said.

World indoor 1,500m champion Yelena Soboleva and her personal coach Matvei Telyatnikov have both denied any wrongdoing, and have echoed Maslakov's thoughts by saying the IAAF decision is politically motivated.

Former New South Wales premier and head of the world doping authority John Fahey has the Beijing Games will be tougher on drug cheats than any other event in sporting history.

“We’re doing something about the cheats, we’ve got to get rid of them if want to get back to the essence of sport which is fair play,” he told 2GB.

“They are more likely to be caught at these Olympic games than any other international meeting in any form of sport in the past.”

Soboleva who has clocked the fastest times in the world this year over both 800m and 1,500m is also included in the suspention-. There are also fellow middle distance runners Svetlana Cherkasova, Yulia Fomenko, former double world champion Tatyana Tomashova and Olga Yegorova.



Hammer thrower Gulfiya Khanafeyeva, a former world record holder and reigning European discus champion Darya Pishchalnikova have also been named in the affair.

No Russian appeal until after Games


Russia's Sports Minister on Friday called a ban on seven of the country's women athletes just days before the Olympics "unprecedented" but indicated there would be no appeal until after the Games, Russian media reported.

"The incident that happened to our athletes is unprecedented, I just don't remember anything like it," state television channel Vesti-24 quoted Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko as saying.

"We don't really want to create a scandal, convinced that something is one way and then get proof that directly contradicts it. We especially don't want to do this directly in Beijing."

"When one week ahead of the Games they take out a whole row of likely medallists, it's simply not something you can call accidental," Mutko said. But it's hardly worth jumping to conclusions without carefully getting into the nuances of the issue, or calling it 'political' ".

"If the athletes are guilty, they will be punished. If we see that the international sporting organisations have not followed the letter of the law, then we will be discussing this differently. Perhaps in court or other means of defence," he said.

Russian newspapers said the bans appeared to be a foreign plot to deprive the national team of at least five golds in Beijing.