OBERHOFEN, Switzerland (AP) - The International Ski Federation wants to impose a longer ban on Norwegian cross-country ski star Therese Johaug in a doping case involving a steroid.
Johaug’s 13-month ban, which lets the former Olympic champion return for the 2018 Olympics, is “on the low end of the range of reasonable sanctions,” FIS said Tuesday
FIS is appealing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the ruling by a Norwegian Olympic tribunal. The case is likely to take several months.
The 28-year-old Johaug tested positive for clostebol. She said it was in a lotion approved by a team doctor to treat sunburned lips during high-altitude training last August in Italy.
The Norwegian judging panel decided that Johaug, a two-time overall World Cup champion and seven-time world championships gold medalist, was not at significant fault for her positive test.
FIS cited Johaug’s failure “to read the doping warning label printed in red on the package.”
The governing body also suggested the skier was further at fault because the “medication was unknown to her and was purchased in a foreign country.”
Johaug’s ban blocked her from defending her World Cup title, but she will be allowed to compete again in mid-November, almost three months before the Pyeongchang Olympics open in South Korea.
Johaug won gold in the 4x5-kilometer relay at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and earned individual silver and bronze medals in distance events at the 2014 Sochi Games.
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