LAUSANNE, Switzerland — More than 20,000 doping tests will have been conducted by the start of next year's Pyeongchang winter Olympics as the International Olympic Committee's pre-Games testing program hopes to root out cheats in advance, it said on Tuesday. Russian athletes are among those targeted most with the nation awaiting the IOC decision on its participation at February's Pyeongchang Winter Olympics following the widespread doping scandal in the country. It is 7,000 (total) tests so far until November on 4,000 athletes, IOC medical chief Richard Budgett told reporters. There will be a lot more in the coming two or three months as we are in the winter season. I suspect the total number of tests will be 20,000. The targeted pre-Games testing task force, jointly run by WADA, the IOC and winter and summer sports federations, advises federations and National Olympic committees to test specific athletes. The Russian athletes have been tested more than other by a considerable margin, Budgett said. Requirements have been issued to the international federations and RUSADA (Russian anti-doping agency) for the level of testing of those athletes. Russia has been in the spotlight since a report by a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) commission in 2015 found evidence of state-sponsored doping in Russia and accused it of systematically violating anti-doping regulations. A further WADA report in 2016 found that more than 1,000 Russian competitors in more than 30 sports had been involved in a conspiracy to conceal positive drug tests over a five-year period. Meanwhile, the IOC opened a high-stakes summit Tuesday on whether to bar Russia from the Winter Olympics over allegations its medal haul at the 2014 Sochi Games was fueled by state-sponsored doping. IOC president Thomas Bach was meeting behind closed doors with his executive board at the committee's lakeside compound in Lausanne just 65 days before the start of the Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. A decision on whether to ban Russia — a winter sports heavyweight — from the Games is expected by the end of the day. The IOC meeting comes days after the draw for the 2018 football World Cup that will be hosted by Russia and which Moscow hopes will elevates the nation's status a rising sporting power. Russian Olympic committee boss Alexander Zhukov and two-time world figure skating champion Evgenia Medvedeva will argue Russia's case before IOC executives. But their pitch may be undermined by the steady drip of negative news that has come out in the run-up to the summit. On Nov. 26, athletics' ruling body the International Association of Athletics Federations maintained its two-year-long suspension of Russia imposed over doping claims. That ban prevented its athletes from competing at the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2017 World Championships in London. The IAAF felt they were left with little choice after the World Anti-Doping Agency had announced on November 16 that Russia was still not compliant with international rules on drug testing. WADA's refusal to lift the suspension of Moscow's national anti-doping body has further damaged Russia's chances of going to Pyeongchang. The country has also been hit with a raft of bans handed out to its medalists at the Sochi 2014 Games in the past week. In total Russia was stripped of 11 of its 33 medals for cheating, meaning it has lost its position at the top of the Sochi medals table to Norway, slipping to fourth place. The explosive, WADA-commissioned 2016 McLaren report alleged state-sponsored doping in Russia. The investigation said the cheating peaked at the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where Russian secret agents are said to have engineered an elaborate system of state-backed doping. Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko said the doping allegations were an attempt to create an image of an axis of evil against his country. But this is all because we are such a great sport superpower, added Mutko, who was barred from attending the 2016 Rio Olympics over the drug-cheating scandal. In an appeal to the IOC he added: We are relying on common sense, on the IOC Charter, on the assumption that no one abolished the presumption of innocence. A ban on Russia would have a major impact on competition in Pyeongchang, notably in disciplines like figure skating, cross-country skiing, speed skating and bobsleigh. — Agencies