The European Indoor Championships, which begin in Torun, Poland on March 5, will be completely without Russian athletes, the Russian Athletics Federation announces.
The Russian Athletics Federation has a plan to restart the team named "Ana" (Authorized Neutral Athletes) which was introduced to the World Cup 2017 and enabled a number of approved Russian athletes to participate in international competitions, despite the suspension that hit the country after the Russian doping scandal, where state-run doping revealed.
"Understand the bitterness"
But the International Athletics Federation has now announced that it will not handle this matter until mid-March, which means that there will now be no Russian athletes at all in next month's championships, the Russian Athletics Federation announces in a statement, quoted by various foreign media.
“We understand the bitterness and disappointment of our athletes, coaches and all athletics fans.
But we ask our athletes to maintain patience and continue training as planned for the coming summer season ", writes the Russian Athletics Federation in a statement.
Ex-chairman darkened doping
The Russian Athletics Federation was shut down in November 2015. The re-establishment of the neutral team was recently suspended after the former chairman of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Sljachtin, was suspended for four years for obscuring doping.
Two Russian athletes are reigning champions in the indoor European Championships: Marija Lasitskene in high jump and Anzjelika Sidorova in pole vault.