Russia to meet Olympic committee over athlete ban

Russian officials will meet representatives of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Friday to discuss details of how its athletes will compete in the 2018 Games following a ban on its national team.

According to a statement by the Russian Olympic Committee, the meeting will be held in Switzerland.

The meeting comes following an Olympic ruling last week which accused Russia of running a state-sponsored doping program.

In a three-year-long investigation the committee said that before and during the 2014 Sochi Games, Russian scientists obscured positive dope tests of 1,000 athletes.

The committee banned Russian athletes from participating in the 2018 Winter Olympics under their national flag, and allowed athletes who cleared dope tests to compete under a neutral flag.

It also excluded Russia's former Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko and his deputy Yuri Nagornykh from participating in future Olympics and suspended Russian Olympic Committee President Alexander Zhukov as an IOC member.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said a ban on the country's athletes was unfair and refuted accusations of a state-sponsored doping system.

Putin said that his country's athletes would compete in the games as individuals.

The Games will be held in South Korea's Pyeongchang in February.