Russia doping ban: Panel advises Wada to uphold Rusada ban

Sochi beat South Korea's Pyeongchang, which hosted the 2018 event, and Austria's Salzburg in the bidding process for the 2014 Olympics

The World Anti-Doping Agency's compliance review committee has recommended that Russia's anti-doping agency (Rusada) remains suspended.

The independent panel was set up in 2015 and increased its role in 2016 in response to Russia's doping scandal.

Wada will vote whether to reinstate Rusada on 20 September.

In a letter seen by BBC Sport, the committee says Russia falls short on two demands set out by Wada in August 2017.

Earlier on Thursday a group of UK athletes demanded the ban remains until Rusada overhauls its anti-doping systems.

Russia's readmission would be "a catastrophe for clean sport", says the UK Anti-Doping Athlete Commission.

It warns that "athletes will no longer have faith in the system" if Russia is allowed back.

Rusada has been suspended since 2015 after it was accused of covering up drug abuse - including while the country hosted the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics - in a report by lawyer Richard McLaren.

The UK Anti-Doping Athlete Commission says Russia is yet to comply with all the conditions of Wada's roadmap to compliance.

"To ignore these conditions, ignores the wishes of the athletes you are there to protect," it added in an open letter to Wada president Sir Craig Reedie.

"It will undermine trust in the essence of fair play on which sport is formed."

Olympic track cycling champion Callum Skinner and skeleton bronze medallist Laura Deas are part of the group.

Three-time Olympic champion Andrew Triggs Hodge and fellow rower Sarah Winckless, Paralympic powerlifter silver medallist Ali Jawad and backstroke world champion Liam Tancock are also members.

Russian anti-doping director Yuri Ganus said earlier this month that he was pessimistic about his country's chances of being reinstated.

Olympic skeleton bronze medallist Laura Deas is one of the athletes to have signed the letter