TOKYO (AP) — Sebastian Coe, the head of World Athletics, on Friday said the organization is sticking to its long-held position that Russian athletes won't be allowed at the upcoming world championships and other big events until a peace settlement is reached in its war in Ukraine.

Track and field's hard-line stance is an outlier among Olympic sports, many of which allowed Russians to compete as neutral athletes at the Paris Olympics last year, and also at some world championships.

Russians have been almost completely absent from major international track meets for about a decade, dating to when they were sanctioned as the result of a doping scandal and the subsequent coverup that engulfed the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Not long after World Athletics lifted that ban in 2022, it enac

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