LAUSANNE: In the first formal disqualification of a Tokyo Olympics athlete for doping, Russian Igor Polyanskiy has been banned for three years, World Triathlon said on Thursday.

Polyanskiy admitted doping with EPO, an endurance boosting hormone, ahead of the Olympics and is banned until during the 2024 Paris Games.

World Triathlon added Polyanskiy did not dispute his positive test in a sample taken at a training camp in Vladivostock, Russia, five days before he began competing in Tokyo.

The positive test was notified after he placed 43rd in the men’s race and helped the Russian Olympic Committee quartet finish 14th in the mixed relay. He was 31st in the men’s event at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

“He and the Russia team were disqualified and their Tokyo results annulled,” World Triathlon said.

Because the 31-year-old Polyanskiy admitted the charge, he got a one-year reduction from the potential four-year sanction by a World Triathlon tribunal.

He is cleared to compete again on Aug 10, 2024, one day before the Paris closing ceremony.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2021