Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Olympic legend out as chair of Russia anti-doping agency

Around the Games - Olympics: Day 16

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - AUGUST 21: Yelena Isinbayeva of Russia reacts after being accepted as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) athletes commission at the IOC 129th Session at the 2016 Summer Olympics August 21, 2016. in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Felipe Dana-Pool/Getty Images)

Getty Images

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.

Isinbayeva has called investigations into Russian doping an anti-Russian plot. Her appointment as chairwoman has been roundly criticized by WADA.

Koehler didn’t specifically mention Isinbayeva in his report, but when pressed by WADA member Dick Pound of the status of “the person about whom everyone has complained,” Koehler responded: “To be very clear, as of the 31st of May, the person will be gone.”

OlympicTalk is on Apple News. Favorite us!

MORE: IAAF to rule on dozens of Russian ‘neutral’ cases next week