MOSCOW — The International Olympic Committee is weighing up whether to ban Russia from next month's games in Rio de Janeiro after revelations of a massive doping cover-up, but relations between the two were once much sunnier. When IOC president Thomas Bach was elected in 2013, he was called almost immediately by Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose country was then gearing up to host the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Bach, a former fencer from Germany, took the call as his IOC colleagues waited to continue the proceedings.