• Russian anti-doping agency votes to file an appeal • President Putin indicated they wanted an appeal filed

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Russia’s anti-doping agency, Rusada, said on Thursday that it would appeal against the four-year doping sanctions barring the country from competing under its flag at top international sporting events. The Rusada board voted to file an arbitration case with the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) in Switzerland.

The decision must be approved as well by another panel of Russian sports and anti-doping figures but that appears a formality. Senior political figures, including President Vladimir Putin, indicated they wanted an appeal filed.

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The Wada sanctions include barring teams under a Russian flag from competing at the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2020 and the football World Cup in 2022, among other global sporting events. The country would also be blocked from hosting international sporting competitions. Individual athletes may be able to compete in events if they can prove they are not implicated or affected by the manipulated laboratory data which led to the sanctions being imposed.

“Rusada will appeal against the Wada decision within 10 to 15 days,” Alexander Ivlev, chair of Rusada’s supervisory board, told the Russian TASS news agency.

Yuri Ganus, the head of Rusada who is not a member of the supervisory board, has said he does not see any chance of winning an appeal.

Russia, which has traditionally been a powerhouse in many sports, has been embroiled in doping scandals since a 2015 Wada report found evidence of mass doping in Russian athletics.

Many of Russia’s athletes were sidelined from the past two Olympics and the country was stripped of its flag altogether at last year’s Pyeongchang Winter Games as punishment for state-sponsored doping cover-ups at the 2014 Sochi Games.