Moscow: President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said Russia would allow athletes to compete at the 2018 Winter Olympics under a neutral flag, after the country was banned from the Games over a state-orchestrated doping programme.

There had been speculation Moscow could boycott the Games entirely after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday barred the country from competition over what its chief Thomas Bach described as Russia’s “unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Olympic Games and sport”.

Clean Russian athletes would be allowed to compete under an Olympic flag, the IOC said.

“We will certainly not declare any boycott, we will not prevent our Olympians from competing, if they want to take part in a personal capacity,” Putin said after a speech at an automobile plant in Nizhny Novgorod, in which he announced he would run for a fourth presidential term next year.

“We must nonetheless get to grips with the decisions that have been made and get to grips with the documents and their details,” he said.

“The final decision of course must be made by the Olympic team.”

Putin said the ban “looks like an absolutely staged and politically motivated decision”.

“We all see this, for me there is no doubt about it,” he stated, repeating denials that any such state doping programme had existed in Russia.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov earlier Wednesday cautioned against an “emotional” response to the ban.

“The situation is serious, it calls for deep analysis,” he said.

Russian officials are expected to address the ban in a meeting next Tuesday.

Russia has always denied any state doping programme, and politicians and athletes earlier reacted with anger and disappointment to the IOC decision.

Agence France-Presse