IAAF general secretary steps aside amid ethics probe

Sebastian Coe, the president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, is now without one of his right-hand men. Nick Davies, the director of the IAAF president's office, elected to step down temporarily as IAAF Ethics Board investigates emails he sent regarding Russian doping ahead of the 2013 world championships in Moscow.

"I have decided to step aside from my role with the IAAF until such time as the Ethics Board is able to review the matter properly and decide if I am responsible for any breach of the IAAF Code of Ethics," Davies said in a statement.

An email surfaced Monday of an email Davies, the IAAF communications director at the time, sent to Papa Massata Diack, a former IAAF marketing consultant and son of former IAAF president Lamine Diack. The email, which Davies requested to be "very secret", discussed a "special dossier" that could be prepared to limit the impact of a series of positive tests from Russian athletes.

"If the guilty ones are not competing, then we might as well wait until the event is over to announce them," Davies wrote in the 2013 email.

French prosecutors are already investigating Papa Massata Diack for a "system of corruption sought to blackmail athletes with positive doping tests. That included monetary demands to cover up doping tests. The IAAF after an independent report from the World Anti-Doping Agency uncovered a system of institutional doping.

dv / (AP, Reuters)