GENEVA (AP) — Sports punishments imposed on Russia this week closed one big body of work for the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Now, the sports lawyers can enter the field — yet again, in a doping scandal that has raged since 2014.

A Russian legal challenge seems certain after Russia’s anti-doping agency was suspended by the global watchdog Monday using powers gained only last year.

Russian President Vladimir Putin already said “we have the grounds to appeal,” and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev urged national sports authorities to take up the fight.

A four-year ban on Russia’s identity at Olympic Games and world championships is the main sanction for state tampering with data from the Moscow testing laboratory.

Athletes implicated in doping or whose data was manipulated will be barred from those major events. Russia also cannot bid for or be awarded rights to host those events, WADA’s executive committee agreed.

A hearing before the Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected early next year in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The legal process

The next step is by RUSADA, the Russian anti-doping agency ruled “non-compliant” by WADA. Its supervisory board meets Dec. 19.

That’s within a 21-day deadline to accept or dispute WADA’s decision. Everything points toward a dispute for WADA to notify at the highest court in sports.

Each side gets to choose one judge from the CAS list of sports lawyers worldwide. The most in-demand judges typically have worked with each other in several previous cases.

Those judges selected have three days to pick a third judge to lead their panel. If they can’t agree, the pick falls to the CAS Ordinary Arbitration Division president — Carole Malinvaud, a Harvard Law School graduate who played junior golf for France.

WADA’s compliance rule book says the panel should then give a detailed verdict within three months. That should be in March or April, said WADA’s compliance panel chairman, Jonathan Taylor.

The Tokyo Olympics open July 24.

WADA rules also give CAS judges power to decide which of Monday’s sanctions to enforce. Any verdict that goes against Russia starts the four-year sanctions clock.

The case

against Russia

Russian doping tainted 2012 London Olympics results and corrupted the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, where the home team topped the medals table.

WADA-appointed investigations and media reports have for years detailed state-run cheating and cover-ups.

The International Olympic Committee resisted WADA’s call for a blanket ban of Russia at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games. The IOC appointed its own panel that verified the evidence weeks before the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games.

Hundreds of Russians competed at both Olympics after their personal anti-doping histories were vetted.