LAUSANNE, Switzerland – An arbitration panel Friday upheld the doping
sanctions against cross-country skier Johann Muehlegg, who was stripped of
a
gold medal and banned for two years after a positive test at the Salt Lake
City Olympics.
The ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport came nearly a year after
the Winter Games, where the Spanish skier tested positive for the banned
endurance-boosting drug darbepoetin. The German-born Muehlegg was stripped of his 50K gold medal by the International Olympic Committee. But he was allowed to keep two other gold medals in the 10K and 30K races because he had passed drug tests after those events (though after those races he was not tested for the drug he was eventually caught with).
In June, the international ski federation handed Muehlegg a two-year
suspension for the Olympic drug test.
Muehlegg filed an appeal this summer with the arbitration court against both sanctions.
This comes two months after the CAS also upheld similar rulings against Olga Danilova and Larissa Lazutina.
From email and wire reports.
