Pyeongchang, South Korea: Slovenian ice hockey player Ziga Jeglic failed a drugs test and has been kicked out of the Pyeongchang Olympics, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said on Tuesday, in the third doping case to rock the Games.
The 29-year-old was suspended and ordered to leave the Olympic Village within 24 hours after testing positive for the banned drug fenoterol, which can be used to treat breathing difficulties, CAS said in a statement.
CAS said Jeglic “accepted an anti-doping rule violation and, as a consequence, the athlete is suspended from competing in the remainder of the Olympic Winter Games Pyeongchang 2018.”
Jeglic is a forward who plays his club hockey in the Kontinental Hockey League for Russian side Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk.
Hours after the CAS announcement, Slovenia — minus Jeglic — were beaten 2-1 in overtime by Norway in a pivotal play-off game.
Coach Kari Savolainen denied that the sudden loss of Jeglic had hurt the Slovenians.
“You could see the answer on the ice — the team was full of energy and they played normally,” said the Finn.
“That was not any reason for losing the game.”
It comes just a day after medal-winning Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky, who passed rigorous vetting to attend the Winter Olympics in South Korea, was also suspended.
Last week, Japanese short-track speed skater Kei Saito pledged to clear his name after testing positive for a banned substance in the first doping case at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Krushelnitsky, who won bronze in the mixed doubles curling with his wife Anastasia Bryzgalova, was the subject of a procedure at the anti-doping division of CAS, which handles doping cases during the Games.
It could have wider repercussions — Olympic officials will decide this week whether to lift a ban on Russia and let them march behind their national flag at Sunday’s closing ceremony.
‘Deep regret’ -
The Russian Olympic Committee — officially banned from Pyeongchang — confirmed in Moscow that Krushelnitsky tested positive for the banned meldonium, which increases endurance and helps recovery.
It is the same substance which Russian tennis player Maria Sharapova was banned for 15 months for taking.
“We deeply regret this incident,” the committee said in a statement on Tuesday.
But it said the concentration of meldonium in the case of Krushelnitsky was “absolutely insignificant from the point of view of any sort of therapeutic effect on the human body”, adding that Krushelnitsky’s previous tests had come back negative.
However, a source close to the case said that the curler failed two drugs tests in two days in Pyeongchang.
Russia were banned as a team from the Olympics in December after investigations revealed an extensive doping plot culminating at the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, where the hosts topped the medals table.
But 168 Russian athletes declared clean after extensive checks were allowed to compete in Pyeongchang as neutrals under the banner of “Olympic Athletes from Russia”.
Skater Saito was the first Japanese to test positive at a Winter Olympics and was immediately thrown out of the Games on Monday last week.
— AFP
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