Russia was banned from the Olympics and world championships in a range of sports for four years on Monday after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) ruled to punish it for manipulating laboratory data.

WADA's executive committee took the decision after it concluded that Moscow had tampered with laboratory data by planting fake evidence and deleting files linked to positive doping tests that could have helped identify drug cheats.

The WADA committee's decision to punish Russia with a ban was unanimous.

Russia, which has tried to showcase itself as a global sports power, has been embroiled in doping scandals since a 2015 report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found evidence of mass doping in Russian athletics.

Its doping woes have grown since, with many of its athletes sidelined from the past two Olympics and the country stripped of its flag altogether at last year's Pyeongchang Winter Games as punishment for state-sponsored doping cover-ups at the 2014 Sochi Games.

Sharpe said:"It is important that WADA sends the strongest possible message. The Russian state sponsored doping campaign is the worst case in the history of anti-doping and must be met with the harshest sanctions possible."

He hoped the ban would restore confidence in the anti-doping movement.

"What is critical from this point on is that Anti-Doping Organisations globally join together in the fight to hold to account those who subvert the system, whether it be individuals, groups or state sponsored," Mr Sharpe added.

"It is unfortunate that the entire saga has now impacted clean Russian athletes. But let's be very clear, this is a direct result of Russian officials manipulating data and casting doubt over all Russian athletes.

"We must now ensure that Russian athletes competing as individuals are subjected to the most stringent of anti-doping processes to restore confidence in world sport."

Australian Olympic Committee vice president Ian Chesterman said the sanctions were appropriate.

"Given the disturbing nature of the findings of the Compliance Review Committee, the sanctions send a powerful message," he said.

"This was a shocking betrayal of fair sport and there are severe consequences for that.

"Every athlete deserves to compete with the confidence they are competing in a clean and fair environment.

"The fact that this was a systematic attempt to undermine fair sport makes it all the more galling and all the more offensive.

"While the guilty must be punished, it's only fair that clean athletes from Russia are given the opportunity to compete if they can demonstrate that they were not implicated in any way."

Monday's sanctions had been recommended by WADA's compliance review committee in response to the doctored laboratory data provided by Moscow earlier this year.

One of the conditions for the reinstatement of Russian anti-doping agency RUSADA, which was suspended in 2015 in the wake of the athletics doping scandal but reinstated last year, had been that Moscow provide an authentic copy of the laboratory data.

The sanctions effectively strip the agency of its accreditation.

Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov last month attributed the discrepancies in the laboratory data to technical issues.

The punishment, however, leaves the door open for clean Russian athletes to compete at major international sporting events without their flag or anthem for four years, as was the case during the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.

Some Russian officials, meanwhile, have branded the call for sanctions unfair and likened it to broader Western attempts to hold back the country.

If RUSADA appeals the sanctions endorsed by WADA's executive committee, the case will be referred to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), WADA has said.

Australian Associated Press