Lord Coe, the IAAF vice-president who hopes to run athletics from next year, has admitted the crisis facing the sport is as serious as those sparked by the Ben Johnson and Balco doping scandals.

The former London 2012 chairman said allegations of systematic doping in Russian athletics, claims of a cover-up that involves senior IAAF figures and questions over the role of the son of the president, Lamine Diack, had added up to “a ghastly week for athletics”.

“We have to bring this tawdry, sorry episode to a close as quickly as we possibly can,” said Coe, who is likely to face a challenge from the Ukrainian IAAF vice-president, Sergey Bubka, for the presidency.

Coe said in his 40 years in athletics as a competitor and administrator the allegations facing the sport ranked alongside the shame of the 1988 Olympic 100m gold medallist Johnson and the Balco scandal that led to Marion Jones being banned.

“This is up there. Nobody is remotely suggesting these allegations are not serious,” he said. “I’m not afraid of embarrassment here. I would rather deal with this now than get to the point where nobody cares about the sport,” added Coe, pointing out he had helped to establish the recently convened independent ethics commission.

The president of the Russian athletics federation, Valentin Balakhnichev, has stepped down from his role as IAAF treasurer while the claims of institutionalised cheating are investigated, despite denouncing them as a “pack of lies”. Papa Massata Diack, an IAAF marketing adviser and the son of the organisation’s 81-year-old president, also stepped down pending the outcome of an investigation.

The Guardian has seen emails that suggest Papa Massata Diack asked for a $5m payment from Qatar during the bidding race for the 2017 world athletics championships in October 2011. The IAAF has said he denies “receiving any such payment nor ever acting in such a manner on behalf of the IAAF”.

Coe insisted he did not know anything about a list of 150 athletes with suspicious blood values referred to by the German broadcaster ARD. Produced between 2006 and 2008 by an IAAF official, it contains the names of three British athletes including one household name considered to have suspicious blood values.

“I don’t know about the existence of a list. It only got mentioned on German television as the third part of a trilogy,” said Coe, who has been an IAAF vice-president since 2007 and is chair of the British Olympic Association. “I don’t know, the IAAF does not know, what this list contains and whether it is a list that has any veracity at all.”

He said ARD should show the list to the IAAF ethics commission or Wada and said officials were prepared to travel to Berlin to see the filmmaker. Hajo Seppelt, the German documentary maker who uncovered the alleged doping and corruption in Russian athletics, said he had spent several days trying unsuccessfully to meet Coe in Monaco last week in order to discuss the issue.

The IAAF’s ethics commission, chaired by the British QC Michael Beloff, was first alerted to some of the allegations concerning Russian athletes and officials in March and is expected to complete its investigation in a matter of months.

Coe’s likely rival for the presidency, Bubka, has yet to comment in detail on the doping claims or the other allegations threatening to tear the IAAF apart. The Briton said it was dangerous to speculate on the basis of a single list.

“These could be musings, they could be suspicions. I was in athletics for 20 odd years, I was subject to that kind of speculation,” said Coe. “We’ve got to be very careful. A one-off reading does not prove anything at all.”

Coe has pointed to his lifelong battle against doping that included arguing for a life ban, his part in doubling the standard punishment from two years to four and his call for an independent anti-doping unit within the IAAF as evidence of his commitment to clean sport.

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NATIONAL shot put record holder Akeem Stewart imitated female compatriot Cleopatra Borel’s gold medal performance at the just-concluded Central American and Caribbean Games in Mexico when he won gold in the men’s shot put at the Mexican Open Para-Athletics Championships 2014, also in Mexico, yesterday.
Stewart’s winning distance of 18.70 metres at the Athletic Track of the National Center (CNAR) established a new world record for the F44 category, shattering the previous record of 18.38m
Similar to Borel, Stewart was also successful in defending the title, which he captured last year in Medellin , Colombia, with a throw of 17.49m.
Stewart, who also competes in open events, gained classification as a Para-athlete in the F44 category last year. The F44 category is for athletes with a disability to the lower extremities to of the leg. He can now qualify to compete at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

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Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee ( TTOC) president Brian Lewis and Secretary General Annette Knott will represent the national Olympic committee  at the 2nd Annual America's Olympic Movement Best Practices Symposium . The two day symposium hosted by the United States Olympic Committee( USOC) will be held 11 -12 December at the Conrad Hilton Brickell Avenue, Miami.

Hosted by the United States Olympic Committee( USOC)  for Olympic leaders  in the Western Hemisphere the symposium provides a forum for National Olympic Committees ( NOC) from the Americas to share best practices in key functional areas that are essential to the success of an Olympic Committee.

Lewis will present as part of the Moderated Panel Discussion on NOC Resource Allocation The TTOC  will speak about the Resource Allocation Conceptual Framework from the perspective of Trinidad and Tobago sport .

The  Moderated Panel and Question/Answer discussion on Resource Allocation Best Practices will comprise Brazil Olympic Committee, Canada Olympic Committee, Puerto Rico Olympic Committee , US Olympic Committee and Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee.

The Americas Best Practices Symposium on National Olympic Committee Management and Sport Performance is a collaboration between the Pan American Sports Organization, the United States Olympic Committee and Olympic Solidarity .

Over the two days Olympic leaders will exchange knowledge and experience through case-study presentations, panel discussions, question and answer sessions and  break-out discussions.

All eight Trinidad and Tobago judokas medalled at the 14th Annual Barbados International Judo Tournament at the Sir Garfield Sobers Sports Complex in Wildey, Barbados at the weekend.
T&T junior judokas won five gold, one silver and two bronze when the competition, that included 142 of the region’s top Judokas, converged in the “Land of the Flying Fish”.
The squad, coached by 2014 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games bronze medallist Christopher George and managed by Nigel Lopez, saw Jellion Jackman, Giovanni Lopez, Gabriella Wood, Xavier Jones and Luke Walk all walk away with gold medals while Joshua Ahwai captured silver and Adam Sui Butt and Adrian Aquan claimed one bronze apiece.
Six Caribbean powerhouses in judo converged in Barbados to test their skills at the Caribbean’s most important event on the region’s circuit. This meet, which is also used as a training ground for the region’s future Olympians, attracted countries such as St Lucia, Dominican Republic, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago and hosts Barbados.
Trinidad and Tobago, fielding one of the smaller teams with eight (8) judokas treated spectators to very exciting judo. The contingent of youngsters, many of whom were first time regional competitors, competed ferociously and earned a third place team finish overall.

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Alia Atkinson became the first black woman to win a world swimming title when she triumphed in the 100m breaststroke at the world short-course championships in Doha on Saturday as more records tumbled.

Jamaican Atkinson, 25, claimed the title and equalled Ruta Meilutyte's world record of 1min 02.36sec in the process - although under governing body FINA rules this still equates to a new record.

Meilutyte appeared on course for a successful defence of her title only for her rival to move on to the Lithuanian's shoulder at the final turn.

Atkinson then clawed her way down the final length before out-touching the 17-year-old by 0.10sec.

She was completely unaware of what she had done, staring up at the scoreboard with an air of resignation before it gradually dawned.

"Me?," she mouthed, pointing at herself before the enormity of her achievement was absorbed and so started the celebrations.

She told AFP: "I couldn't believe it! It came down to the same thing as the 50 and on the 50 I got out-touched so in my mind I went straight back to that.

"I just thought 'oh okay' and looked up at the board and it didn't really click yet and then it really started to click. It took a while!"

Atkinson's role at the International Swimming Hall of Fame in Florida is to encourage greater involvement of different communities in swimming and to promote water safety.

"Hopefully my face will come out, there will be more popularity especially in Jamaica and the Caribbean and we'll see more of a rise and hopefully in the future we will see a push," Atkinson mused.

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Trinidad and Tobago Olympic sprinter Njisane Phillip had a disappointing day at the London leg of the cycling World Cup yesterday. Phillip who was fourth in the event at the London 2012 Olympics, did not get past the 1/16 finals.
Phillip, who had health issues this year, was just the 23rd fastest man in the Flying 200 qualifiers out of 41, in a time of 10.260 seconds. Edward Dawkins of New Zealand was top of the field in 9.975. Phillip’s low placing put him in a 1/16 rideoff with the second fastest qualifier, Robert Forstermann of Germany (10.008). Forstermann was the winner over three laps, with Phillip eliminated. Forstermann eventually placed eighth after the four-man race for fifth to eighth places.
On Saturday, Phillip’s teammate Kwesi Browne got to the repechage stage of the keirin where he was eliminated by Japan’s Kazunari Watanabe in a close race.

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