Russia hope to compete under national flag

The Russian Olympic Committee said on Tuesday it expected that Russian athletes would take part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Games under the national flag despite a four-year doping ban.

“The Russian Olympic Committee is a rightful member of the Olympic movement,” its president Stanislav Pozdnyakov told reporters after a meeting.

“Therefore we have every reason to believe that we will put together a team for Tokyo and do everything in our power for this team to perform under the Russian tricolour.”

The World Anti-doping Agency on December 10 banned Russia for four years from major global events, including the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, over manipulated doping data.

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WADA accused Moscow of falsifying data from a doping testing laboratory that was handed over to investigators earlier this year.

Russia has said it would contest the ban, with President Vladimir Putin slamming the sanctions as politically motivated.

Speaking on Tuesday, Pozdnyakov confirmed that the Russian Olympic Committee would support the decision of its supervisory board to defy the WADA ban.

Last week RUSADA anti-doping agency said it had “made a decision not to agree” with the four-year ban by the World Antidoping Agency’s decision.

The decision will have to be communicated to WADA before the end of the month, triggering the appeal process in Court of Arbitration for Sport. Under the sanctions, Russian sportspersons will still be allowed to compete at the 2020 Olympics and the 2022 Winter Olympics, but only as neutrals.