Russia banned from 2020 Tokyo Olympics for doping scandal

The World Anti-Doping Agency executive committee banned Russia from competing for the next four years, which will leave them out of the next two Olympic Games.

Russia will not have any formal presence at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo or at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. They are forbidden from participating in most of the major international competitions through 2023, which include the FIFA World Cup, the Paralympics, and world championships, among others that follow the World Anti-Doping Code.

WADA's executive committee made the decision after meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Monday. The committee gave the Russian Anti-Doping Agency formal notice of its noncompliance.

“For too long, Russian doping has detracted from clean sport,” WADA president Craig Reedie said in a statement. “The blatant breach by the Russian authorities of RUSADA’s reinstatement conditions, approved by the [executive committee] in September 2018, demanded a robust response. That is exactly what has been delivered today. Russia was afforded every opportunity to get its house in order and rejoin the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport, but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial.”

Russia now has three weeks to respond to the complaint. If they disagree with it, "WADA shall then file a formal notice of dispute with CAS, and the dispute will be resolved by the CAS Ordinary Arbitration Division," but if they accept the punishment, it will go into effect.

Russian Olympians were not allowed to participate formally during the 2018 Olympics as a result of a previous doping encounter. Instead, during the games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, 168 Russian athletes competed as "Olympic athletes from Russia." The Russian Ant-Doping Agency was conditionally reinstated in September 2018, but they were more recently caught manipulating data from its anti-doping laboratories and misleading investigators.