The IAAF appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Thursday against doping bans given to seven leading female Russian athletes, saying the suspensions are not severe enough.
The International Association of Athletics Federation is angry that the suspensions imposed by the Russian national federation were backdated, and wants the bans to be extended beyond the normal 2-year period because of the circumstances surrounding the cases.
Middle-distance runners Olga Yegorova, Svetlana Cherkasova, Yulia Fomenko, Yelena Soboleva and Tatyana Tomashova, and field athletes Gulfiya Khanafeyeva and Darya Pishchalnikova were all provisionally suspended by the IAAF ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympics for tampering with their urine samples.
The Russian athletics federation announced on Oct. 20 that the athletes had been banned for two years. It backdated the suspensions to April and May 2007, when the athletes faced out-of-competition tests.
The timing meant that the athletes would regain eligibility in April and May 2009, and could compete in the World Championships in Berlin in August.
"It is unacceptable to the IAAF that these athletes, who have committed serious and deliberate breaches of our anti-doping rules would receive an effective ban of approximately 9-10 months and see them eligible to compete again in the summer of 2009," IAAF president Lamine Diack said. "What is more, I consider the circumstances surrounding these cases warrants the IAAF to seek an extended ban over and above the minimum two-year period."
The IAAF said it told CAS that the date of a sanction can't begin earlier than the day the athlete was first provisionally suspended.
Soboleva had set an indoor world record in the 1,500-meter race this year, while Tomashova is a two-time world 1,500 champion.
