Last month the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) handed out two-year bans to seven Russian women athletes after they were ruled to have switched urine samples before tests for performance-enhancing drugs.
"It is unacceptable to the IAAF that these athletes who have committed serious and deliberate breaches of our anti-doping Rules would receive an effective ban of approximately 9-10 months and see them eligible to compete again in the summer of 2009," the organization's website quoted IAAF President Lamine Diack as saying.
The athletes were temporary suspended in late July by the IAAF "for a fraudulent substitution of urine which is both a prohibited method and also a form of tampering with the doping control process."
The ARAF carried out its own independent investigation in early September and completed it in October, passing a two-year ban for each athlete.
"I consider the circumstances surrounding these cases warrants the IAAF to seek an extended ban over and above the minimum two year period," Diack said.
Earlier Valentin Blakhnichev, the president of the ARAF, said: "two years is the minimal penalty provided for such a serious violation" and that "the IAAF could introduce amendments" to this rule.
The athletes, who were suspended by the international athletics association, include world 1,500-meter record holder Yelena Soboleva, two-times world 1,500-meter champion Tatyana Tomashova, hammer thrower Gulfiya Khanafeyeva, discus thrower Darya Pishchalnikova, and middle-distance runners Svetlana Cherkasova, Yulia Fomenko and Olga Yegorova.
Soboleva, Tomashova and Pishchalnikova were tipped to win medals for Russia at the Beijing Olympics.
All the athletes denied the allegations, but accepted the IAAF provisional suspension imposed just eight days prior to the start of the Beijing Olympics to avoid embroiling the Russian team in a scandal that could have affected their performance.
