Russia banned from 2018 Winter Olympics over doping

Lausanne, Switzerland

RUSSIA has been banned from the 2018 Winter Games by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over its state-orchestrated doping programme, but clean Russian athletes will be allowed to compete under an Olympic flag.

The sanction, announced on Tuesday (Wednesday morning, Singapore time) was the toughest ever levelled by the IOC for drug cheating and came just seven weeks before the start of the Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.