The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has announced that South African athlete Fanie Lombaard has been suspended for 1 year and fined following an Anti-Doping Rule Violation, according to a press release.
Lombaard returned an adverse analytical finding for Probenecid in a urine sample provided on January 27, 2011 after he had won gold in the Men’s Discus at the IPC Athletics World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The substance is included in the 2011 Prohibited List and consequently prohibited under the IPC Anti-Doping Code, which has adopted the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC).
A hearing into the case revealed that the prohibited substance had been prescribed to Lombaard by a family physician for a medical reason. However, the athlete did not have a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) to explain the adverse analytical finding, nor did he retrospectively apply to obtain a TUE.
According to the IPC Anti-Doping Code, it is each athlete’s personal duty to ensure that no prohibited substances enter his or her body. Each athlete is responsible for any prohibited substances found in their bodily specimen, regardless of how it entered their body.
As a result, Lombaard has been stripped of the Men’s Discus gold medal he won in Christchurch at the IPC Athletics World Championships. This means that Belgium’s Gino de Keersmaeker who originally claimed silver in New Zealand will be awarded the gold medal. Great Britain’s Aled Davies will be promoted from bronze to silver and Greece’s Marinos Fylachtos will take the bronze.
