Gunter Younger, the director of intelligence and investigations for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), earlier expressed his hope in an interview with sportschau.de that new evidence from a study of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory’s database would resume proceedings against Russian athletes that had been acquitted or partially acquitted by CAS in February 2018.
"Currently, all options are open. We are assessing the situation based on the information available", the IOC said in response to a relevant question.
In 2018, before the Winter Olympics, a number of leading Russian athletes, who have not received an invitation from the International Olympic Committee to participate in the Games, filed a suit against the IOC demanding to be admitted to the Olympics. Recently, CAS fully overturned the IOC ban for 28 Russian athletes, 11 others got their appeals partially upheld, while the appeals of 32 athletes were dismissed. 169 Russian athletes were registered for participation in the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics under a neutral flag.
On 5 December 2017, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic Committee over an alleged state-sponsored doping scheme in the country. The Russian authorities have repeatedly refuted allegations of a state-sponsored doping system. They were supported by the head of the IOC-established commission Samuel Schmid who said there was no proof of state support for the doping system in Russia.
In November 2019, the WADA Executive Committee imposed a ban on Russian athletes, suspending them from taking part in international sporting events, including world championships, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, for four years. WADA also declared RUSADA non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Code. Russian President Vladimir Putin called WADA's decision to remove Russia from international sports not consistent with common sense or law and bearing a political connotation.