Martin Grab, a Swiss cultural icon in the traditional wrestling discipline of Schwigen, is facing a potential four year ban after testing positive for a drug used to combat breast cancer. Analysis of his B sample is consistent with analysis of his A sample, and has confirmed an adverse analytical finding (AAF) for tamoxifen.

‘On the Prohibited List, tamoxifen is in the group of hormonal and metabolic modulators’, read an Anti-Doping Switzerland statement. ‘This substance is used to fight breast cancer. The abusive use of tamoxifen may include reducing the undesirable side effects of treatment with anabolic steroids.’

Grab, whose A sample tested positive in June, has always maintained he did not intentionally take tamoxifen. In July he announced that he ‘cannot explain’ the AAF, after Anti-Doping Switzerland opened proceedings against him. Unless he can show how the prohibited substance could have appeared in his sample, he could face a standard four year ban.

‘This drug alone, which is used especially by women against breast cancer, would have given no sporting advantage to me’, said Grab in a statement. ‘Nevertheless, I am absolutely shocked by this result. I cannot explain how tamoxifen could get into my body […] The result is inexplicable to me’.