A huge wrench has been thrown into the spokes of star cyclist, Alanzo Greaves after it was disclosed yesterday that he will have to serve a further three years on his initial one-year ban which he completed last November.
During a press briefing at Olympic House yesterday, Dr. Karen Pilgrim,
a Doping Control Officer (DPO) dropped the bombshell on media operatives stating that World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had appealed the initial 12-month period of ineligibility handed down to Greaves by the Caribbean Regional Anti- Doping Organization (RADO) Results Management Committee (RMC) in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Switzerland.
WADA won its case after the CAS upheld the appeal filed on June 20, 2016 on the grounds that the “athlete should have been sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility rather than only one year.”
The CAS has determined that Greaves is sanctioned with a four-year period of ineligibility, commencing with the date of January 5, 2017.
In a Caribbean RADO press release dated January 25, 2017 it stated that “The Caribbean RADO has accepted the ruling of the CAS on the Anti-Doping Rule Violation (ADRV) case in the matter of cyclist Alanzo Greaves.
“Having already served one year, the Caribbean RADO therefore implements the CAS decision to ban Greaves for a further period of three years effective from January 5, 2017 until January 4, 2020.”
The Court of Arbitration for Sport, which ruled on a Sports-related arbitration on 5 January 2017, found that Guyanese cyclist Alanzo Greaves was guilty of an ADRV in accordance with Article 2.1 of the World Anti-Doping Code, during his participation in the Tour of Guyana 5 Stage Cycle Road Race in November 2015.
The urine sample of the 28 year-old returned an Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF), that is, a positive test, for the prohibited substance Testosterone. Further analysis of the urine sample by the WADA accredited laboratory reported a testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio greater than 25, thus confirming the substance testosterone or its metabolites was exogenously derived, that is not naturally produced by his body.