MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's top state sports official agrees that Yelena Isinbayeva cannot continue as chair of the scandal-hit Russian Anti-Doping Agency because of a conflict of interest.
Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, who oversees sports policy, said Isinbayeva "will obviously leave the post as chair of the supervisory board," in comments to the Russian agency R-Sport on Friday.
MONTREAL (AP) — Never known for haste, the World Anti-Doping Agency delivered two pieces of news Thursday that could strengthen its ability to expedite the end of the Russian doping scandal.
MONTREAL (AP) — A World Anti-Doping official says Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva will be out as chairwoman of the Russian anti-doping agency at the end of the month.
Deputy director general Rob Koehler delivered a report about the Russian doping scandal to the WADA foundation board Thursday. He said the Russian agency must find an independent chair as part of a long list of reforms that will bring it back in compliance.
LONDON (AP) — Russia's lack of progress in cleaning up its doping culture and introducing a satisfactory testing regime continues to impede the country's reinstatement to athletics, the IAAF said on Thursday.
Providing its latest update on Russia's state-sponsored doping system, the IAAF also criticized the country's decision to make Yelena Isinbayeva the head of the country's scandalized anti-doping agency.
Troubling as the details of the McLaren Report were, a news item out of Russia earlier this week was equally so. The new chair of the country's "revamped" anti-doping agency will be Yelena Isinbayeva, the pole vault great who has spent the past year thumbing her nose at all the evidence and at those who've dared to mete out punishment for the malfeasance.
MOSCOW (AP) — Even before Friday's publication of a new report into alleged state-sponsored doping by Russian athletes, Russia and the World Anti-Doping Agency are bickering.
WADA is upset because it was not consulted before a new board was picked to oversee reforms at the suspended Russian drug-testing agency, known as RUSADA. The board is chaired by pole vault great and WADA critic Yelena Isinbayeva.
MOSCOW (AP) — Former Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva has been chosen to chair the new supervisory board of the Russian anti-doping agency, which is struggling to recover its reputation after repeated doping scandals.
The agency, known as Rusada, said in a statement on Wednesday that Isinbayeva would head a 10-person board including sports executives, academics, and a Russian sports ministry official.
BRUSSELS (AP) — It is the way the bar trembles.
One moment, it falls and robs you of an Olympic gold medal.
On Friday, it stayed up and Sandi Morris joined the very exclusive 5-meter pole vaulting club.
In the highlight of the Van Damme Memorial meeting, it came to the last woman standing, and the bar at a height only Russian great Yelena Isinbayeva and American Jenny Suhr had reached.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian athletes including the women's pole vault world record holder, Yelena Isinbayeva, have visited an air base in Syria that Russia uses to target Islamic State fighters.
Isinbayeva, who won gold at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics but like most Russian track and field athletes was banned from competing in Rio, led a group of Russian athletes to the Hemeimeem base in the government-controlled part of Syria.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Yelena Isinbayeva, the pole vault world record holder, says she is retiring from competing in the sport.
Isinbayeva was prevented from seeking a third Olympic title in Rio de Janeiro after the IAAF banned all but one Russian track and field athlete from the games over their country's state-sponsored doping scandal.
At a news conference in Rio, the 34-year-old Isinbayeva said through a translator that she is "finishing her professional career."
MOSCOW (AP) — A depleted Russian team departed for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, missing dozens of athletes who were excluded amid the country's doping scandal.
Team members left on a charter flight from Moscow's Sheremetevo airport to Brazil, a day after an emotional farewell ceremony with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
More than 100 athletes from what was originally a 387-strong team have been barred from competing in Rio by...
LONDON (AP) — Now that Russian track and field athletes have failed in their effort to have their Olympic ban overturned, it's up to the IOC to decide whether to kick the entire Russian team out of the games that begin in Rio de Janeiro in 15 days.
In another blow to the image of the sports superpower, the highest court in sports on Thursday dismissed an appeal by 68 Russian track athletes of the ban imposed by the IAAF following allegations of systematic and...
ZHUKOVSKY, Russia (AP) — Russia's top athletes reacted with anger after the news broke Thursday that their track and field team would remain banned from next month's Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Two-time Olympic champion pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, the team's biggest star, wrote on Instagram that without Russia, historically a track superpower, only "pseudo-gold medals" would be on offer at a devalued Rio Olympics.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport's decision —...
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — American Jenn Suhr has been paying more attention to pole vaulting than politics lately.
Now that she's in the Olympics, the defending champion says that, sure, she'd like to see her biggest rival there, too.
"I'd like to compete against the best," Suhr said Sunday at U.S. Track and Field Trials, when asked about the prospect of facing Russian world-record holder Yelena Isinbayeva. "I was told that I was misinformed on some things when I made...