• Impasse needs to be settled before the turn of the year • Russia would be barred from hosting international events

The World Anti-Doping Agency faces intense pressure to suspend Russia again after its experts were forced to curtail a mission to retrieve doping data from the Moscow laboratory because of a row over IT equipment.

Unless the impasse is ended before a 31 December deadline the Russian Anti-Doping Agency is likely to be banned when Wada’s independent compliance review committee meets on 14 January. If that happens, Russia will again not be allowed to host any international events.

Wada said its five-strong team had made progress with accessing the Moscow Laboratory Information Management System and the underlying data from the lab after arriving in Moscow on 17 December. However in a statement it also confirmed that “the team was unable to complete its mission within the prescribed time due to an issue raised by the Russian authorities that the team’s equipment to be used for the data extraction was required to be certified under Russian law”.

It pointedly added: “This issue had not been raised during an initial meeting on 28 November in Moscow, after which Wada sent its expert team back to Moscow to retrieve the data.”

The news will be hugely embarrassing for Wada and its president, Sir Craig Reedie, especially as the controversial decision to lift Rusada’s three-year suspension in September provoked outrage among athletes and the anti-doping community.

Wada’s Sir Craig Reedie rejects calls to quit and denies backroom Russia deal Read more

Many athletes were especially angry that Russia had never formally admitted to a sophisticated state-sponsored doping programme involving over 1,000 athletes and 30 sports. However at the time Reedie said it was the right decision.

Wada now faces being left with egg on its face. However it promised Moscow that its expert team “stands ready to proceed with the full data extraction should the matter be resolved by Russia expeditiously”.

In response Russia’s sports minister Pavel Kolobkov admitted that “several technical issues remained to be settled” but he insisted he was optimistic about the future. “We should receive by the year end an official statement from Wada regarding another visit of the independent experts to the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory. There will be another visit.”