Moscow - The sport of biathlon skiing in Russia suffered another doping blow Thursday when the Allsport news agency reported that two skiers tested positive at the national championships in the West Siberian town of Uvat. According to the reports, the A-samples of one male and one female skier tested positive for the blood-booster EPO, the same drug that biathlon Ekaterina Iourieva, Albina Akhatova and Dmitri Yaroshenko tested positive for at the biathlon World Cup season-opener in Ostersund, Sweden, last December.
The trio were identified as drug cheats after the examination of their B-samples ahead of February's world championships in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The tests on the two as yet unnamed skiers were carried out by Russia's anti-doping agency and if the B-sample returns positive they face a two-year ban.
