IOC calls for tough sanctions against doping offenders

International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach appealed Wednesday for "severe" sanctions to be imposed against those athletes implicated in the doping scandal involved in a Nordic skiing doping ring.

At least 21 athletes from eight nations across five sports are suspected of blood-doping linked to a German doctor who was arrested as part of an Austria-Germany doping raid last month.

"We hope that all this will be clarified and everything will come on the table and there those responsible and the entourage of these athletes, the doctors and the personnel, that they will be punished soon and hard," Bach said.

"I hope it will not drag on, that justice will really set an example, that there will be heavy penalties that will act as a deterrent," he added.

Research technician Gerard Dussault tests samples inside an anti-doping lab at the Olympic Oval in Canada, October 21, 2009. /VCG Photo

The IOC was confronted with a vast doping scandal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, which led to the suspension of Russia at the 2018 Winter Games.

168 competitors from the country were allowed to compete as "Olympic athletes from Russia", of whom, two were later disqualified for doping, more than any other country.

In televised comments on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russian athletes and officials should play by anti-doping rules ahead of next year's Olympics, "so that we don't give any pretext to those who use sport for political ends, to act against Russia's interests."