Finnish biathlete Kaisa Varis won an appeal to overturn her lifetime ban from the sport on Friday even though she tested positive for the banned drug EPO.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that biathlon’s governing body broke anti-doping rules by not giving Varis the chance to be represented when her backup sample was opened.
As a result, “the outcome of the ‘B’ sample testing cannot be accepted as part of the evidence” against Varis, the court said.
The 33-year-old Varis, who had a previous two-year ban for using EPO during her career as a cross-country skier, can now resume competing in biathlon.
After a World Cup event at Oberhof, Germany, in January last year, Varis again tested positive for EPO, an endurance boosting hormone.
Three weeks later, the backup sample also tested positive.
However, Varis had taken up her right under the 2003 edition of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s code and asked that she, or her technical representative, could be present when the second sample was opened.
The code, updated this year, now says an athlete’s written consent is sufficient before testing a “B” sample.
The International Biathlon Union had “failed to make any efforts to reasonably accommodate [Varis’] request,” the CAS said.
The ruling stated that athletes had that right in the 2003 code “even in situations where all of the other evidence” indicated doping.
Varis was a cross-country skier when she tested positive for EPO during the 2003 World Championships at Val di Fiemme, Italy. She later switched sports and took up biathlon.
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