Andrea Iannone has lost his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against his suspension for failing a drug test.
The CAS ruled that Iannone had failed to prove that he had ingested drostanolone, the banned substance that had appeared in the urine sample taken from him after the Sepang race, as a result of eating contaminated meat.
Both Iannone and the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) had appealed against the 18-month suspension imposed by the FIM’s International Disciplinary Court (CDI).
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has finally announced that they will be hearing the appeal of Andrea Iannone against his doping ban of 18 months, imposed by the FIM International Disciplinary Court at the end of March.
However, in a surprise move, the CAS also announced they will be hearing an appeal against the leniency of the ban from WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, who want the full four-year ban reinstated.
At the heart of the case is the doping test Andrea Iannone failed after the race in Sepang, in November 2019. Traces of drostanolone, a banned anabolic-androgenic steroid, used mainly for weight loss, was found in that urine sample.
As a non-specified substance, drostanolone use carries an automatic four-year ban under the WADA code, which the FIM signs up to and incorporates.
Generally speaking, December is a quiet time for the MotoGP paddock, as teams and riders take their holidays and well-earned time off very seriously.
It is a brief reprieve until testing starts again in the new year, but for the Aprilia Racing squad, their MotoGP effort is on high-alert after the news that their rider Andrea Iannone failed a drug test in Sepang earlier this year.
Facing a potential four-year ban, the future of Iannone’s racing career likely resides in the testing of his “B” sample from the Malaysian round, but naturally Aprilia has its own Plan B in the works as well.
Ant West has been issued a retroactive ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and has had almost all the results for the last 18 months declared invalid.
All of West’s results between the Le Mans 2012 race and 20th October 2013 have been declared null and void, and will be scrapped from the official Moto2 results.
The retroactive ban goes back to a failed doping test at Le Mans in 2012. West had bought a supplement energy drink without checking the ingredients, and subsequently failed a drug test.
The energy drink (Mesomorph) turned out to contain the banned substance methylhexaneamine, traces of which were found in West’s urine.