Russia has been banned from competing in international sports for 4 years after an investigation by the World Anti-Doping Agency

Russia was found guilty of manipulating laboratory data to mask banned substances in its athletes during a probe in January, says the BBC.
The ban means it will be unable to compete at both the 2020 Olympics in Toyko and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
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Russia has been banned from competing in international sports for four years after an investigation from the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was concluded.

Russia was found guilty of manipulating laboratory data to mask banned substances in its athletes during a probe in January, the BBC reports.

The ban means the country will be unable to compete at the 2020 Olympics in Toyko, the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing.

The report says Russian athletes who can provide proof that they were unaffected by the doping scandal will be able to compete, however, under a neutral flag.

Wada vice-president Linda Helleland said on Twitter that she believed the punishment was still "not enough" and that the organization "owe it to the clean athletes to implement the sanctions as strongly as possible."

Russia has 21 days to appeal the ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

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