RUSADA chief Yury Ganus and RUSADA deputy chief Margarita Pakhnotskaya give a media briefing in front of the RUSADA (Russia's anti-doping agency) office in Moscow on September 20, 2018. Photo: VCG

 

Russia's anti-doping chief said Tuesday he expected the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to uphold a recommendation that Russia be barred from all sporting competition for four years.

"That's the reality," RUSADA chief Yury Ganus told AFP after a key WADA panel made the recommendation on Monday, accusing Moscow of falsifying laboratory data handed over to investigators.

"We are plunging, for the next four years, into a new phase of Russia's doping crisis," Ganus said.

"Four years is a long time, that's two Olympic Games." 

Ganus said Russia urgently needed new sports management and called on President Vladimir Putin to intervene.

"Honestly, I am waiting for the president to take an active part in this," he said. "There are a lot of problems in sports here but the most difficult and tragic thing is that our athletes have become hostages of the actions of our sports officials."

"We need to push through real changes," he said. "We need new sports leaders." 

In a bombshell statement, WADA's Compliance Review Committee called for the sanctions, which would see Russia banned from next year's Tokyo Olympics, to be approved at a meeting in Paris on December 9.

The WADA committee has also recommended Russia be barred from staging or bidding for major international sporting events for a four-year period - potentially placing Saint Petersburg's status as one of the venues for the Euro 2020 ­soccer tournament in jeopardy.