CAS upholds race walker Tysse’s 2-year doping ban

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The Court of Arbitration for Sport has dismissed Norwegian race walker Erik Tysse’s appeal against a two-year ban for doping.

CAS says its panel found Tysse guilty of using CERA and upheld his ban from competition through July 7, 2012.

The 30-year-old Tysse, who finished fifth in the 50-kilometer race at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2007 world championships held in Osaka, Japan, denied doping.

He tested positive for CERA, a banned hormone which boosts production of red blood cells, at a May 2010 competition in Italy.

Tysse was provisionally suspended by athletics’ world governing body, the IAAF, then prosecuted by a Norwegian doping tribunal.

CAS rejected his claim that a Rome laboratory’s tests were unreliable.