An email by IAAF president Sebastian Coe, apparently showing he was aware of an alleged Russian doping scandal, has raised the question of whether he misled a British parliamentary committee.
"Whatever excuse he gives, it is clear that Lord Coe decided not to share with the committee information that was relevant to our inquiry on doping in sport," committee chairman Damian Collins told the BBC.
"The committee asked him about his knowledge of doping in Russian athletics and of corruption within the sport. In his answers, he gave the impression that he was unaware of specific allegations."
Coe told the committee in December 2015 that he was not aware of specific allegations of corruption around the anti-doping process in Russia before details of a scandal involving Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova broke via a television programme shown in December 2014.
But an email published by the committee on Tuesday shows Coe seemingly acknowledging he had been made aware of the issue.
"I have in the last couple of days received copied documentation of serious allegations being made by and on behalf of the Russian female athlete Shobukhova from [former London Marathon race director] David Bedford," Coe wrote in an August 2014 email to Michael Beloff, chairman of the IAAF ethics commission.
"I have spoken to David today on the phone and he advises me that he has shared this information with you ... The purpose of this note is of course to advise you that I have now been made aware of the allegations."
Coe, who was elected IAAF president in 2015, insisted there was "no discrepancy" in his testimony in a letter to the committee also published Tuesday. He said "there are no grounds for suggesting that I misled the committee in any way."
Coe told the BBC last June he had not opened the attachments in an email sent to him by Bedford which contained allegations from Shobukhova that she had paid money to senior IAAF official to cover up positive doping tests.
He claimed that as he merely forwarded the email to the ethics committee he had not been aware of the detail of the corruption allegations and therefore had not misled parliament.
Coe has so far declined to return to answer more questions from the committee, who cannot compel his presence.
