WADA set to punish Russia over doping today

LAUSANNE: The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), whose executive committee meets in Lausanne on Monday, is set to punish Russia’s complicity in a state-sponsored doping programme with a new four-year ban on Russian sportsmen and women. It is likely to present more difficulties for Russian athletes wanting to compete on the world stage and for federations who are planning to stage events in a country that has often been a welcoming haven for some of the world’s less wealthy sports. However, football and Formula One events in Russia would be exempt. Here is what the ban would mean for Russia in more details: The Athletes: Russia would be banned for four years from the Olympic and Paralympic Summer and Winter Games. That rules an official Russian team out of Tokyo 2020 and the Beijing Winter Olympics of 2022. It would mean Russian competitors who have proved themselves above doping suspicion would have to compete under the ‘neutral’ Olympic flag. That was the case at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, when 168 Russians took part in 15 sports.