Wednesday, 18 July 2012:
Six Indian female runners will serve two-year bans after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld an appeal against lighter sentences, according to media reports.
The Press Trust of India quoted sources on Wednesday confirming the ruling.
The athletes had been handed lighter one-year bans by India's National Anti-Doping Agency, which felt the athletes had taken performance-enhancing drugs unknowingly, prompting an appeal by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
The athletes include three members of the 4x400 relay team that won gold medals in the New Delhi Commonwealth Games and Guangzhou Asian Games in 2010: Ashwini Akkunji, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose. Akkunji had also won the 400-metre hurdles at Guangzhou.
The other three runners are Jauna Murmu, Tiana Mary and Priyanka Panwar.
Akkunji, Jose and Panwar tested positive for methandienone, Murmu and Mary for epimethandiol and Kaur for the more common stanozolol.
Their coach, Yuri Ogorodnik of Ukraine, was fired in July last year after being accused of providing the athletes with food supplements not sanctioned by Sports Authority of India.
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