DOPING: The Australian Olympic Committee and newly-crowned Olympic champion Jared Tallent have welcomed the decision to continue the ban on the Russian track and field team at the Rio Games.

The IAAF decided overnight to uphold a competition ban on Russia ruling they hadn't met readmission criteria imposed when they were suspended over widespread state-sponsored doping last year.

AOC president John Coates, who is also an IOC vice-president, said they supported the move by the athletics world governing body.

"The AOC welcomes the IAAF decision overnight to maintain its suspension of the Russian athletics federation," Coates said.

Tallent on Friday was presented with his gold medal from the men's 50km walk at the London Olympics, where he crossed the line second behind Russian drug cheat Sergey Kirdyapkin.

Tallent said it would change the way his Rio event was raced, with the Russians a force in race walking.

"There's athletes who probably never thought they had a chance to win a medal will now believe they've got a chance so it's a very positive day for the event and I'm looking forward to racing in Rio with other clean athletes to see who's the best," Tallent said.

Coates will head to Switzerland for an IOC meeting on Tuesday, where Russia will attend as well as other Olympic heavyweights China and the United States.

He didn't believe the IOC would overturn the IAAF ban.

"We will consider it but I'd be very, very surprised," Coates said.

"It's an international federation's right to suspend a national federation and I don't think we would overturn that at all."

Coates said the focus of the meeting would be for the IOC to set some guidelines for the IAAF to consider allowing individual Russian athletes to compete in Rio provided they had met certain drug testing conditions.

Melissa Woods
AAP