Intro:

Lord Coe, vice president of athletics' world governing body, the IAAF, reacts to allegations by a German TV documentary that 99% of Russian athletes are guilty of doping.

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English): Sebastian Coe, IAAF vice president:(on Russian doping allegations).

"It's, it's... we are following these procedures very closely and very tightly and clearly take these allegations very seriously. But it is now for the ethics committee chaired by a very eminent QC and an august group of people who have both experience in sport and corporate world to make a judgement about what is being said. That's when we will clearly have to act on the culmination of what they report to us."

SOUNDBITE: (English) Sebastian Coe, IAAF vice president:(on the allegations being so widespread and apparently systematic in Russian sport).

"Well, they are allegations and as I've said, the ethics committee will report back to us. But they are very serious allegations, this is not just simply an athlete falling foul morally of the codes within a sport. The allegation here is that this is a systemic abuse and they need to be properly investigated. And we also have to be acutely conscious that a disproportional amount of reputational damage is being done to our sport by a relatively small number of countries and that is something that my council colleagues have clearly had to think about."