But global Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said on Wednesday his organisation had “no authority” to take such action, and the matter was exclusively for the IAAF to deal with.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an investigation into claims the country’s athletes have been part of a systematic doping programme.
Bach was asked if the integrity of the medals table could stand up while Russian Federation has been accused of covering up doping at the Moscow testing lab.
A spokesperson for Putin believes stated that accusations of state-sponsored doping are “groundless”, but the Russian president on Wednesday had his first say on the matter.
Earlier Russian sports minister Vitali Mutko blasted British anti-doping standards as “worse” than Russia’s.
The furore comes after Grigory Rodchenkov, the disgraced director of Moscow’s suspended anti-doping laboratory, who according to WADA deliberately destroyed nearly 1,500 samples, resigned his post.
It accused the Russian government of complicity in widespread drugs cheating and attempts to cover it up.
Julio C. Maglione said: “Of course this is a hard time for sport, and as sports people we at FINA are shocked and saddened by WADA’s Independent Commission report”.
Coe told Reuters on Sunday that his instinct was against banning Russian Federation, but a day later he said the scale of the doping regime exposed by the report meant that the IAAF Council should consider the recommendation for such a temporary ban.
Mutko said that even if Russian Federation was suspended “we don’t plant to boycott anything anywhere”.
“I agree that this is not only a Russian problem, but if our foreign colleagues have questions, they should be answered, and it must be done in the open”.
He had already resigned as president of the worldwide Athletics Foundation, the charitable arm of the IAAF, which the 82-year-old headed for 16 years.
Bach has said sanctions are up to the IAAF and WADA, but also stressed that the IOC will be ready to strip any medals from Olympic athletes mentioned in the report who are found guilty of doping.
Diack ended his 16-year reign as IAAF president in August, when Briton Sebastian Coe, a double Olympic 1500m victor, was elected as his replacement.
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Besides serving as sports minister, Mutko is also the head of the 2018 World Cup organizing committee and a member of the Federation Internationale de Football Association executive committee.
