Claudia Pechstein Loses Doping Appeal

(ATR) The doping case of Claudia Pechstein and the International Skating Union was handled appropriately, says the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

CAS says the nine-time Olympic speed skating champion received fair treatment from the Swedish Supreme Court, the ISU, and CAS itself after appealing a two-year doping ban from 2009.

"Claudia Pechstein, who was represented by a team of lawyers, decided voluntarily to refer her case to CAS and neither challenged the CAS jurisdiction, nor the president of the CAS appeals division, nor the arbitrators comprising the arbitral panel, although she could have done it if she had any doubt about the independence of the CAS or its arbitrators at that time," says a CAS release issued today.

"Later, as she was unhappy with the outcome of the arbitration, she appealed twice before the Swiss Federal Tribunal, which confirmed the validity of the CAS award. The judgment, which remains in force, should have settled this matter definitively in 2010"

The ISU handed Pechstein a two-year ban in 2009, after determining her blood profile to be abnormal after a series of tests, including one during the world all-around championships in February.

Pechstein maintained her innocence, writing on her website that "there are no indications which will support the prodigious insinuation of the ISU."

She later appealed to the ISU and CAS, attributing mistakes in the testing process to the positive result which led to her ban.

Although the ban was lifted in Feb. 2011, Pechstein sued both the ISU and Germany’s speedskating federation for over $5.2 million for lost earnings and personal suffering she has endured as a result of the doping ban.

Written by Andrew Murrell.

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