MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday gave former cycling world champion Shane Perkins of Australia Russian citizenship, paving the way for the rider to represent Russia at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Perkins, 30, announced he was switching allegiance to Russia earlier this year after failing to get on Australia’s track cycling team for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.

A decree published by the Kremlin said Putin had signed off on granting citizenship to the the rider, who is currently in Saint Petersburg for Russia’s national championships. The rare defection by an Australian athlete raised eyebrows, since Melbourne-born Perkins has no family ties to Russia.

The cyclist was reportedly convinced to join the Russian team by his training partner in Japan Denis Dmitriev, who told him that it would give him a good chance of competing in Tokyo.

"It was probably the hardest week I have had in 25 years of coaching. To deal with that and work through it with the athletes, and quite a few of them were emotional. I think that also helped them as it motivated them. They could say 'we are doing it for Sutto' so my way of thinking was that it went the other way, but for me, it was one of the most unprofessional things I have seen done in 25 years to advertise. When you are at the biggest event of the year for our sport, and you see your job advertised the day before… It was very disappointing."

The Head Endurance Track Coach will focus on identifying and developing a deep pool of world-class endurance track athletes and fully leveraging USA Cycling’s development programs and high performance support. In this role, Sutton will build upon the success of USA Cycling’s World Champion team pursuit squad to achieve USA Cycling’s goal of becoming the number one women’s endurance track program in the world while launching a new men’s endurance track program as well.