THE governing body of athletics IAAF provided new guidelines Tuesday for Russians hoping to compete in a neutral capacity while their country remains banned from track and field competitions.

    IAAF said it is assessing evidence and intelligence relating to around 200 Russian athletes gathered by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) investigator Richard McLaren.

    Applications from athletes for neutral status will also be scrutinized using several criteria to prove they are clean, including:

    — Whether any of their support staff, including medics and coaches, have been implicated in a doping violation;

    — Whether there have been any atypical findings in doping samples or concerns about their biological passports, which are official records of athletes’ blood data;

    — How often they have been tested in recent years, and whether there are any gaps in their testing history;

    — Whether any of their samples in storage are due to be retested.

    Any athletes who are approved will be officially considered “neutral” rather than Russian for the purposes of competitions. The European indoor championships in March would be the first major event under the new rules.

    (SD-Agencies)