Court of Arbitration for Sport hears Polish canoeist’s appeal against Beijing disqualification

Sport’s high court hears Polish canoeist’s appeal

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski went to sport’s highest court Tuesday trying to overturn his disqualification from the Beijing Olympics for doping.

Seroczynski arrived for a hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport to help present his appeal against a ruling by the International Olympic Committee last December.

A CAS verdict is expected within several weeks.

The IOC’s executive board disqualified the 35-year-old Pole — a bronze medalist at the 2000 Sydney Games — after he tested positive for the banned anabolic agent clenbuterol.

Seroczynski denied the doping charge when he appeared before an IOC disciplinary panel last September, one month after the Beijing Games ended. He suggested the clenbuterol came from contaminated meat he ate in China.

Seroczynski and his teammate Mariusz Kujawski finished fourth in the flatwater K2 1,000 meters class, less than one-tenth of a second outside the medals. The 22-year-old Kujawski is not under suspicion.

The pair won a world championship silver medal in 2007. Seroczynski won his Olympic medal for Poland in the K4 class.

The International Canoe Federation must wait for the appeal process to be completed before taking action against Seroczynski. It can ban him from all official competitions and wipe his Beijing result from the records.

Under new IOC rules, any athlete caught doping and banned for at least six months cannot compete in the next Olympics.