Responding to the World Anti-Doping Agency's recommendation for a four-year suspension, the IOC said Russia's conduct amounted to "an insult to the sporting movement worldwide."

"The IOC will support the toughest sanctions against all those responsible for this manipulation," the IOC said in a statement.

WADA's Compliance Review Committee recommended the ban on Monday, accusing Moscow of falsifying laboratory data handed over to investigators.

The recommendation is set to go before WADA's Executive Committee at a meeting in Paris on December 9.

In its statement the IOC cautioned against blanket sanctions that would punish the innocent.

The statement said "the report does not indicate any wrongdoing by the sports movement in this regard, in particular the Russian Olympic Committee or its members.

"In this context, the IOC welcomes the opportunity offered by WADA to Russian athletes to compete, 'where they are able to demonstrate that they are not implicated in any way by the non-compliance'."

The four-year ban recommendation came after WADA investigators examined data handed over in January from Russia's doping-tainted Moscow laboratory.

Full disclosure of the data was a key condition of Russia's controversial reinstatement by WADA in September 2018.