Russia's anti-doping chief says he expected WADA suspension proposal

Moscow - Russia's anti-doping chief on Saturday said the World Anti-Doping Agency's (WADA) recommendation that his country was non-compliant with international rules was technically fair and expected.

If WADA chiefs adopt the panel recommendation in December, Russia faces severe sanctions including a possible ban from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games."Everything is in accordance with legal logic, as was expected," RUSADA chief Yury Ganus told Interfax news agency after WADA said its Compliance Review Committee had recommended the Russian agency's suspension again.

"RUSADA is being issued non-compliance because the compliance decision it was handed in September 2018 was contingent, and to keep it, two demands had to be met. These were met formally but not properly," Ganus said.

He added that the Russian agency will wait for the WADA Executive Committee meeting on December 9 "where they will discuss measures that need to be taken, and what we should do."

Ganus stressed that suspension was not due to "the quality of RUSADA's work," adding: "It's a purely technical decision... conditions were not met whose implementation was not up to us."

Sports minister Pavel Kolobkov told Russian agencies that he would reserve comment until December 9.

"It's only a recommendation," he said. "We'll discuss it on the 9th."

Russia's agency was reinstated in September 2018 on the condition that it discloses all data from its Moscow laboratory that is believed to be the centre of a systematic conspiracy to switch tainted samples from the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games.

The Russian government has said all data has been sent over as required and that Russian investigators had concluded it had not been tampered with.

It had dismissed accusations that authorities handed over falsified data.

Russia's athletics authorities were also meeting on Saturday to choose a new president of the Russian athletics federation following the suspension of the current chief by World Athletics this week.

The Russian federation has been banned for doping since November 2015.