NEXT week, one of the biggest decisions that sport has ever had to face will be made. On Friday, athletics’ governing body, the IAAF, will meet in Vienna to decide if the ban currently imposed on Russia for state-sponsored doping will be lifted or remain in place for the Olympic Games this summer.

Sport has been in a precarious position for the past decade or so in that almost no exceptional performance has been viewed without at least a hint of cynicism. The findings that so many Russian athletes had been systematically doped strengthened this belief that many top athletes are “at it” and recent revelations that anti-doping processes were corrupted at the 2014 Winter Olympics only served to further erode the trust in elite sport.

The IAAF’s decision next week is huge in terms of the future of athletics, with Sebastian Coe, the President of the world governing body describing it as the “come to Jesus moment” for Russian athletics. Coe has said that if Russia does not meet the criteria it was set in order to have the ban lifted then the country will not be in Rio. Boiled down, the criteria insisted that Russia must demonstrate that it has cleaned up its act and removed all nefarious individuals from its athletics system.

Russia is doing everything it can to make it appear that it has changed; all potential Olympians have been subjected to extra doping controls, those at the top of both the country’s anti-doping agency RUSADA and athletics federation ARAF have been overhauled, and testing has been run by UK Anti-Doping in recent months. Quite how much of a bearing these factors will have on the IAAF’s decision remains to be seen. It is impossible to second guess which way it will go next week but if athletics’ governing body has any intention of making a start at repairing the reputation of its sport, Russia’s ban must remain in place.

The primary argument against a blanket Olympic ban on Russia is that innocent athletes will suffer. Certainly there could be some clean Russian athletes who would miss the Olympic Games due to the actions of others. This is, indisputably, unfair. But do you know what? Life isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that innocent athletes across the world missed out on medals at major championships because they were beaten by dirty Russian opponents. It isn’t fair that athletes have lost funding because they failed to medal after finishing behind doped-up Russians. And it isn’t fair that those clean athletes missed out on having their moment on the podium and instead find out that they are Olympic or world medallists in a phone call years after the event.

Certainly, there will be some Russian athletes who protest that they are clean who will fight the ban if it remains for Rio; already double Olympic pole vault champion, Yelena Isinbayeva, has said that she will file a discrimination case at the court of human rights if Russia’s ban bars her from Rio. And there has been talk that individual Russian athletes may be permitted to compete in Brazil if they can prove they are clean. It is already well-established that definitively proving that one is clean is impossible, and we all know that the “I’ve never failed a test” defence means nothing.

The IAAF’s decision next week will have implications significantly further-reaching than just how Rio’s Olympics is viewed though. If there is a single Russian track and field athlete on the start line in Brazil, the credibility of athletics will be smashed into smithereens. Russia has brought the sport into such disrepute that its punishment must be severe. To date, its ban has meant almost nothing but missing an Olympic Games would hurt the country significantly.

Dick Pound, whose report lead to Russia’s ban, has argued that the country cannot receive a get-out-of-jail-free card as a result of being one of the most prominent athletics nations. He is right; leniency must not be afforded just because the IAAF does not want to exclude London 2012’s second highest medal-winning nation.

For Coe, this decision is a defining moment. To date, his judgement as President of the IAAF has been quite astonishingly suspect. I maintain that he should have been deposed months ago- he is too interconnected with the cover-ups and denials that have permeated the IAAF in the past to be fully trusted, yet he remains at the helm. But if the IAAF rules next week that Russia is eligible to compete in Rio, Coe will have proven that he is not fit to lead track and field towards redemption. Athletics has a considerable way to go to regain the public’s trust; indeed, whether it ever will is far from certain. The first step towards rebuilding the sport is to ban Russian athletes from Rio. If there is a single Russian competing in Brazil’s Olympic stadium in two months time, then the damage to athletics will be severe. And potentially irreparable.