Rio 2016: Banned Russian pole vaulter Yelene Isinbayeva attacks Lord Coe after controversial IOC appointment

The Russian, who is banned from competing in Rio, has been elected on to the IOC’s athlete’s commission

Isinbayeva accused Coe of avoiding her phone calls (Getty)

The International Olympic Committee’s credibility in the fight against doping was further undermined on Friday when a banned Russian pole vaulter who has been elected to the organisation attacked both the McLaren Report and Lord Coe for excluding her compatriots from Rio.

Yelene Isinbayeva lavished praise on IOC president Thomas Bach for publicly welcoming her appointment to the organisation’s athletes’ commission and for not banning the entire Russian delegation from Rio. “I am so grateful that Mr Bach took a brave decision and let the Russian delegation perform here,” Isinbayev said.

But she said it was a deep injustice about her own exclusion and that the result of the Rio Olympics women’s pole vault competition was tainted as a result. The winner of the competition was competing only for “second place” Isinbayeva said – because she was competing so well she would have won.

“About the McLaren report, I will say only one thing,” she said. “All of the accusations he has levelled are based on assumptions. There so no proof. [Yet] for some reason his assumptions were allowed to raise the question of banning the Olympic team. I would like to see more facts; more specific proof. I cannot say anything positive about this report. It is incomplete. To base a decision on this report and ban our team was unfair.”

Isinbayeva accused Coe of avoiding her phone calls and refusing to meet her. But she also said that she was interested in becoming head of the Russian athletics federation. Considering her caustic views on the IAAF and McLaren, that creates a bleak prospect of Russian athletics acting on the findings of the Prof Richard McLaren’s 103-page report. The document detailed a highly organised system, overseen by Russian authorities, to switch urine samples, disguise doping and secure a good medals haul for the Sochi Winter Olympics.

“I said when I arrived [in Brazil] I will never forgive anyone for banning me from the Games in such an unjust way,” Isinbayeva added. “But now I have changed my mind. I am no judge. So if the president of the IAAF believes that they did a very honest thing. Let god be their judge. It will something on their conscience.

“I don’t understand why [Coe] avoids me. I only ask if you have objections against me and why I was denied the chance to take place in Rio.”

Canadian former Olympic swimmer Mark Tewksbury tweeted this week that he was “disgusted” that Isinbayeva was being elected to an IOC committee and questioned Bach. “This athlete – really,” he said. Isinbayeva, who announced her retiremen from competition, said other should not follow Tewksbury’s lead and instead “behave honourably as the Olympic charter states.”

Russian journalists applauded her into the room at the start of her press conference and a Russian TV station gave her a bouquet of flowers as she left.