Russia to appeal against WADA's four-year doping ban

Russia will be appealing against World Anti Doping Agency's (WADA) decision to ban the country from major international sporting events for four years, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) confirmed on Thursday.

RUSADA's Supervisory Board today met to deliberate WADA's punishment.

"It is unjust, doesn't correspond to common sense and the law," CNN quoted Russia President Vladimir Putin as saying.

WADA on December 9 had handed a four-year ban to Russia from participating and hosting major sporting events over its involvement in a doping scandal.

This means that Russia will not take part in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, 2022 Winter Olympics, and the FIFA World Cup 2022.

WADA's compliance review committee (CRC) had suggested several sanctions because of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency's (RUSADA) failure to cooperate fully during probes into Russian sport.

WADA's executive committee decided to uphold the recommendations at a meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland.

It is being alleged that Russia manipulated a database to delete some test results and fabricate other data.

Three years ago, Russia was caught involved in one of the most controversial doping programs in sports history.

In the program, Russian anti-doping experts and members of the country's intelligence service replaced urine samples tainted by performance-enhancing drugs with clean urine at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Following the resolution from that case, Russia agreed to provide a set of testing results to doping regulators from its Moscow laboratory.

It is that database which has forced Russia to now stand accused of manipulating to cover up continued violations.