Lausanne, Switzerland - The Court of Arbitration on Wednesday rejected an appeal from German speed skater Claudia Pechstein against a two-year ban for a doping rule violation. Pechstein will miss the Vancouver Olympics over the ruling which makes her the first top athlete to be banned through blood screening results for a biological passport and not a positive doping test.
The five-time Olympic champion was banned for two years until February 2011 by the skating body ISU for abnormally high levels of reticulocytes (immature red blood cells) on several occasions, including the all-round world championships in February in Hamar, Norway.
Pechstein and the German speed skating association DESG appealed the ISU decision before the CAS.
Pechstein protested her innocence, argued that the high levels of red blood cells could be produced naturally and also suggested irregularities in the testing proceedings.
But, after a two-day hearing last month, the three-man CAS panel upheld the ISU ruling and said that Pechstein was guilty of blood manipulations.
"The Panel found that the above abnormality could not be reasonably explained by the various justifications submitted by the athlete nor by a congenital medical condition ... and concluded that there were no signs of any detectable blood disease or anomaly.
"The Panel finds that they must, therefore, derive from the Athlete's illicit manipulation of her own blood, which remains the only reasonable alternative source of such abnormal values," the CAS said.
Pechstein's lawyer Simon Bergmann said the case is now to be brought before the Swiss supreme court.
"This very tough for me to accept," said Pechstein in a first reaction to the ruling.
Pechstein said she was banned "without evidence but only on one single piece of circumstantial evidence."
Pechstein is the most decorated German winter Olympian with five gold medals, two silver and two bronze. She also has six world titles.
She had hoped to add more silverware at her sixth Olympics in Vancouver February 12-28, 2010.
But the ruling could now mark the end of her career and there are indications that she may lose her job as member of the German police force as well. The DESG said in a first reaction she will receive no more funding from the federation.
Under new rules by the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), athletes can be subject of doping sanctions via the blood profile.
The ISU introduced the passport 10 years ago and other sports such as cycling and Nordic skiing also use it. These sports may now also be encouraged to sanction athletes through screening results.
"Every doping case is a disappointment but it shows that the control system works, The ruling will bring forward the fight against doping because the conditions for indirect evidence are more concrete now," said Thomas Bach, the president of the German Olympic Committee and International Olympic Committee vice-president.
German athletics supremo Clemens Prokop struck a similar note: "The ruling should change the quality of the fight against doping considerably. It will not only be based on drug tests but the sum of all facts."
