CAS says ban illegal, Bulgarian back in fray

Add as a preferred source on Google

Sydney: The sporting world's top court ruled on Monday that Bulgarian weightlifter Alan Tzagaev could take part in the Olympic Games and that a ban on the entire Bulgarian weightlifting team lacked a legal basis.

A Bulgarian team spokeswoman said Tzagaev would take part in the men's 105-kg event later on Monday following the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The International Weightlifting Federation threw all the Bulgarians out of the Games on Friday after three medallists had tested positive for banned diuretics during the Olympics.

Diuretics can be used by athletes to lose weight before a competition or to mask the presence of other banned substances.

But the court ruled that the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) should first have given the Bulgarian team the chance to pay a $ 50,000 fine, as they did with the Romanian team after two of its lifters tested positive.

"The CAS panel... held that the decision of the IWF to suspend the Bulgarian Weightlifing Federation lacked a legal basis," the court said in a statement.

The court ruled Tzagaev, the Bulgarian team's last lifter due to compete in the Games, should be allowed to take part.

The IWF had argued that the Bulgarian case was different to the Romanian one because all three Bulgarian lifters had tested positive during the Games.Two of the Romanians tested positive in Sydney, but before the Olympics began, following another Romanian doping case earlier in the year.

The IWF has a "three strikes and you're out" policy whereby a federation is banned for 12 months if three of its lifters are found to have taken banned substances in a calendar year.

In addition to the ban on the federation, the three Bulgarians who tested positive were stripped of their medals.



(c) Reuters Limited.