Race walker Schwazer tests positive for steroids

Italian 50km race walker Alex Schwazer, who resumed competition in May after a three-and-a-half year doping ban, has tested positive for anabolic steroids, according to an Italian daily.

Alex Schwazer had earlier failed a doping test conducted by the WADA while he was training for the London Olympics.

Italian 50km race walker Alex Schwazer, who resumed competition in May after a three-and-a-half year doping ban, has tested positive for anabolic steroids, La Gazzetta dello Sport reported on Wednesday. The sports daily said the test on the 2008 Olympic gold medallist, carried out by world athletics' governing body, the IAAF, on January 1, had at first come back negative.

After Schwazer qualified for August's Rio Olympics following his 50km race walk victory in the world team championships on May 8, the sample was re-tested on May 12 and this time showed traces of steroids. According to La Gazzetta , Schwazer and the Italian athletics federation were informed of the positive test on Tuesday.

After he won the Olympic gold in Beijing, Schwazer failed a doping test conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) while he was training for the London Olympics.

The Italian anti-doping court banned him for three and a half years for testing positive for the blood booster EPO (erythropoietin), and he was removed from Italy's team before he had the chance to defend his Olympic 50km title. Italy's former world figure skating champion Carolina Kostner was banned for 16 months for helping Schwazer, her former boyfriend, evade a doping control.

Kostner, the 2012 world champion, was charged with assisting Schwazer as he attempted to evade a doping control in Oberstdorf, Germany in July 2012, and for her lack of cooperation while being interviewed by investigators.