Russian Olympic gold medalist rower banned for doping

Published Jun. 27, 2019 6:08 p.m. ET

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian rower and Olympic gold medalist Sergei Fedorovtsev has been banned for four years for doping.

Fedorovtsev won Olympic gold in quadruple sculls in 2004. He tested positive for the banned substance trimetazidine shortly before an Olympic qualifying regatta in 2016, and his crew was stripped of its Olympic spot when the results came back.

The Russian anti-doping agency, which collected Fedorovtsev's drug-test sample, says he has now formally been handed a four-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in a long-running case.

CAS has not yet announced any sanction, and didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fedorovtsev's ban is backdated to May 2016. It's unclear if the 39-year-old three-time Olympian has any intention of competing again when the sanction ends next year.