Russian high jumper Shustov receives four-year doping ban

[June 09, 2020]    MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian high jumper Alexander Shustov, the 2010 European champion, has received a four-year ban for anti-doping violations, the country's athletics federation said on Monday.

A sign on display saying "Russian Federation of Athletics" is pictured in Moscow, Russia November 23, 2019. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Shustov, who retired from competition in 2017, has been suspended until 2024 for "use or attempted use of a banned substance or prohibited method" in a ruling by the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) last week, the federation said.

It added that Shustov's results between July 2013 and July 2017, a period that encompasses his seventh-place finish at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, had been voided.

Shustov told TASS news agency that he disagreed with CAS' decision.

No other details, including the name of the banned substance or method, were disclosed.

Russia's athletics federation was suspended in 2015 after a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found evidence of mass doping in the sport. The organisation has since been working to be reinstated by World Athletics, the global governing body of track and field.

(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

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