The governing body of world athletics has suspended five Russian race walkers from competition pending further investigation on their participation in a training camp with a banned coach.
The decision to revoke the neutral status of Klavdiya Afanasyeva, Olga Eliseeva, Yuliya Lipanova, Sergey Sharypov and Sergey Shirobokov means they will not be eligible to compete at the race walking team championships in China later this week, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) said in a statement on Friday.
Russia's athletics federation was suspended in 2015 over a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) report detailing evidence of systematic, state-supported doping in Russian athletics. But the IAAF has cleared some Russians to compete internationally as neutral athletes.
