Russian Olympic Committee pressures track leaders to reform

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Olympic officials have added to the pressure on the country’s track and field federation, calling for entirely new leadership after senior officials were implicated in obstructing an anti-doping investigation.

Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov says he wants to see “a complete change of the whole management” at the federation after meeting interim president Yulia Tarasenko on Monday.

She took office Saturday, replacing Dmitry Shlyakhtin, who resigned after he became one of seven Russians charged in the obstruction case.

The charges center on allegedly fake medical documents used as an alibi by an athlete who wasn’t available for drug testing.

Pozdnyakov says the case damages Russia’s effort to restore its sports standing after doping scandals and “inflicts colossal reputational damage on our country as a whole.”