Russia will be absent from next year's Olympic Games and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, despite having its ban from sport cut in half. 

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has banned Russia from competing at major championships for the next two years.

In November of 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) handed RUSADA a four-year ban for circumventing doping regulations.

The CAS panel unanimously found RUSADA to be non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code, and ordered a two-year ban to begin on December 17 2020 and run until December 16 2022.

That means Russia's name, flag and anthem will be absent from next year's Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, the 2022 Winter games in Beijing and the Qatar World Cup of 2022.

Athletes will still be allowed to compete as neutrals, provided they are able to prove they're not connected with previous RUSADA breaches.

In their final ruling, CAS said of Russia, "This Panel has imposed consequences to reflect the nature and seriousness of the non-compliance [to the WADC] and to ensure that the integrity of sport against the scourge of doping is maintained.

"The consequences which the Panel has decided to impose are not as extensive as those sought by WADA. This should not, however, be read as any validation of the conduct of RUSADA or the Russian authorities.

"In making its orders, the Panel is limited by the powers granted under the applicable law, in particular the WADC and the ISCCS.

"It has considered matters of proportionality and, in particular, the need to effect cultural change and encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sport."

RUSADA must adhere to several stipulations during the course of their two-year ban.

Among them:

• An international observer must remain on RUSADA’s Supervisory Board and RUSADA’s Director General must provide quarterly reports to WADA confirming that RUSADA’s independence has been fully respected by the Russian authorities and no attempt has been made to interfere in any of its operations.
• RUSADA must not interfere with the efforts of other Anti-Doping Organisations and their delegates (e.g., the International Testing Agency, International Doping Tests & Management, Professional Worldwide Controls, etc.) to test and/or investigate athletes in Russia.
• RUSADA shall, under supervision of the WADA Intelligence and Investigations department (WADA I&I) or the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) of World Athletics (as applicable), conduct investigations into any cases impacted by the deletions and/or alterations of the Moscow Laboratory data, as notified by WADA, including doing everything possible to locate the complete and authentic data from the Moscow Laboratory relating to those cases, so as to rectify in full the tampering that has impacted those cases.

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