MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. The All-Russia Athletics Federation (RusAF) has withdrawn its appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the decision of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to extend the national federation’s suspension term, RusAF President Dmitry Shlyakhtin told TASS on Friday.

The Swiss-based CAS registered the appeal from RusAF in late September, however, no definite date was set for its consideration. RusAF claimed that an implementation of a number of requirements set out by the IAAF was beyond the authority of the Russian athletic federation. One of the requirements was to grant access to the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.

"We have made a decision to withdraw our appeal, which was filed with the Court of Arbitration for Sport on September 25, 2018 against the IAAF Council’s decision as of July 27, 2018 to extend sanctions in regard to RusAF," Shlyakhtin said in an interview with TASS.

The RusAF president said that a decision to recall the appeal was made following the ruling of the Executive Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on January 22 to uphold the compliance status of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA).

"A part of the required criteria for the RusAF’s membership reinstatement with the IAAF has been already implemented therefore there is no more need of appealing against them," Shlyakhtin stated.

"I strongly believe that at the moment we need to consolidate our efforts on negotiations with IAAF regarding RusAF’s reinstatement, instead of wasting our time and strength on court hearings," the RusAF president said.

The IAAF Council decided at its session on December 4 in Monaco to extend the membership suspension of the RusAF citing a number of criteria, which were still needed to be implemented by the Russian side, including the repayment of the $2.76 million debt.

The world’s governing body of track and field athletics suspended RusAF’s membership in late 2015 following a wave of anti-doping rules violations and put forward a host of criteria, which the Russian ruling body of track and field sports was obliged to implement in order to restore its membership in the global federation.

The IAAF, however, permitted clean athletes from Russia to participate in the international tournaments under the neutral status or the Authorized Neutral Athlete (ANA) until the membership of the RusAF was reinstated. IAAF’s previously issued neutral-status permissions for Russian athletes expired on December 31, 2018.

The IAAF Doping Review Board approved on December 18 an updated version of the Guidance Note for Authorized Neutral Athlete (ANA) status applications and sent the document to the RusAF. According to the document, "Athletes who were granted ANA status in 2018 are able to re-apply for eligibility in 2019 by completing a simplified application form.".