The International Ice-Hockey Federation (IIHF) has banned Latvian Ralfs Freibergs for two years, following an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) committed during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The suspension of the national team player began on 23 February 2014, and will end on 22 February 2016.

‘The case concerns the use of a prohibited substance according to section S.1 of the World Anti-Doping Code 2014 Prohibited List (Anabolic Agents)’, read an IIHF statement. ‘On 19 February 2014, immediately following the quarter-final game between Canada and Latvia, Freibergs was requested to submit to doping control. On 22 February 2014, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accredited laboratory in Sochi notified the IOC [International Olympic Committee] regarding an adverse analytical finding found in the player’s A sample, namely an anabolic androgenic steroid called turinabol.’

Turinabol was developed by scientists in East Germany specifically for distribution to Olympic athletes, through the doping programme known as STASI (state plan) 14.25. Although it has largely been discontinued from pharmaceutical production, it is understood to still be available through the black market.

Freibergs’ B sample confirmed the A sample, and on 23 April 2014, the IOC urged the IIHF to take action, which it did on 28 April by provisionally suspending Freibergs. The athlete appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which, on 17 December 2014, dismissed Freibergs’ arguments questioning the validity of the analytical results.

‘As the Player’s attorney in his statement of 17 February 2015 upheld his allegation that the laboratory in Sochi was an unlawful institution and therefore not entitled to test the sample taken on 19 February 2014, the Deciding Panel wants to specify the following: The Laboratory in Sochi has fulfilled all requirements set up by the Code’, continued the IIHF statement. ‘There is no clause to be found in the Code that requires the laboratories used by the IOC must be registered under local law. The laboratories must be accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which was the case with the Sochi laboratory. Therefore the Player’s argument that the analysis of the Players sample was invalid, because no legally (under Russian law) accredited laboratory was registered under the address ‘Adler District, Sochi’ (the – incomplete – address of the Anti-Doping Olympic Laboratory Sochi), has no legal meaning.’

‘The period of ineligibility to be imposed for the violation of Code Article 2.1 according to IIHF Disciplinary Regulation Article 5.7, Code Article 10.2 – for the first violation – should be two (2) years. The term of 2 year’s ineligibility results from IIHF Disciplinary Regulations Article 5.7, Code Article 10.2 – first violation; the status during ineligibility follows from IIHF Disciplinary Regulations Article 5.4, Code Article 10.10.1. According to IIHF Disciplinary Regulations Article 5.3, Code Article 10.9.3, the provisional suspension imposed by the IIHF is to be credited against the period of ineligibility ultimately imposed. Considering that the substantial delays in the hearing process until the decision of the IOC Olympic Disciplinary Committee and the period until the provisional suspension was imposed are not attributable to the Player (Code Article 10.9.1),the period of ineligibility starts one day after the result of the B-sample was notified.’