BRATISLAVA, July 5: Slovak shot putter Mikulas Konopka, who won gold in the 2007 European Indoor Championships, has been given a life time ban following a second positive drugs test, the Sita agency reported on Saturday.

The Slovak athletics association’s disciplinary committee imposed the ban on the 29-year-old after a positive ‘B’ test for the banned anabolic steriod metandienon was reported by an Austrian laboratory, it said.

The original test which showed up the steroid took place in May.—AFP