Russia must do everything it can to eradicate doping, says Vladimir Putin

President Vladimir Putin says Russia must do everything it can to eradicate doping. Photo/Getty.

Russia must do everything it can to eradicate doping, President Vladimir Putin said today, as his country faced a possible ban from the Olympics over allegations of "state-supported" drug abuse in athletics.

At a crisis meeting of Russian sports chiefs, Putin said the country must carry out an inquiry into the World Anti-Doping Agency allegations but cautioned that any punishment should be "individual" and not collective.

"I ask the minister of sport and all our colleagues who are linked in one way or another with sport to pay this issue the greatest possible attention," Putin said ahead of a meeting with sports officials in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

"It is essential that we conduct our own internal investigation and provide the most open - and I want to underline - the most open professional cooperation with international anti-doping structures."

The meeting comes in the wake of this week's report by a commission of the WADA that said Russian sports is plagued by extensive, state-sanctioned doping. The allegations have raised the prospect of Russia's track and field athletes being denied participation in next year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Putin ordered Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and "all colleagues connected with sport" to pay close attention to the doping allegations and for an internal investigation to be conducted - one that guaranteed full cooperation with international anti-doping bodies.

"The struggle with doping in sports, unfortunately, remains a pressing issue and it requires unending attention," he said.

Putin is up against a Friday deadline for track's governing body to decide on whether to suspend Russia - a first step toward excluding its athletes from next year's Olympic - following WADA's report.

Earlier, Mutko said the country was ready to allow a foreigner to take charge of its anti-doping lab.

Grigory Rodchenkov resigned yesterday as director of Russia's anti-doping laboratory, a day after he was accused of concealing positive doping tests, extorting money from athletes and destroying 1417 samples.

The lab - which handled doping tests for last year's Winter Olympics - has stopped work after Wada stripped its accreditation.

In comments reported by Russian agency R-Sport, Mutko said Russia was ready "to put a foreign specialist in charge of the laboratory, if that's what's needed".

The governing body of swimming said today it is moving its doping test samples taken at the world championships in Russia to the WADA-accredited lab in Barcelona.

FINA said in a statement that it "expresses its deep concern" over the publication of the WADA-commissioned report "and its impact in worldwide sport in general".

IOC president Thomas Bach said he expected the IAAF to take "necessary measures" against the Russian track and field federation on Friday.

Russia could be suspended from the sport - nine months before next year's Olympics - when IAAF president Sebastian Coe convenes a meeting of his ruling council.

Bach told reporters in Lausanne, Switzerland, that "the IAAF has informed us they will take the necessary measures". Bach said he expects the IAAF decisions will "protect clean athletes".

Russian track federation vice president Tatyana Lebedeva, a former Olympic long jump champion, said the organisation has carried out enough reforms to deserve a place at next year's Olympics despite the doping scandal.

Lebedeva told The Associated Press "our federation has done everything possible that was in its power" to reform over the last year, since a German documentary about systematic doping in Russia aired.

- Agencies