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Uzbekistan's Galiulina Luiza performs during the women's floor excercise gymnastics at the 2010 Asian Games in China. Dita Alangkara/AP/Press Association Images
London 2012

Uzbek gymnast suspended for drug violation

Artistic gymnast Luiza Galiulina has become to latest athlete to be suspended.

UZBEK GYMNAST LUIZA GALIULINA was suspended from the Olympic Games on Sunday after failing a drugs test.

Galiulina tested positive for the banned diuretic furosemide on Wednesday, and had her case heard in London on Saturday night.

The 20-year-old from Tashkent, who was due to compete in artistic gymnastics, will have a B urine sample tested later on Sunday.

The International Olympic Committee announced: “The athlete, Mrs Luiza Galiulina, Uzbekistan, Artistic Gymnastics, is provisionally suspended from competing in the Games of the XXX Olympiad, with immediate effect.”

An IOC disciplinary commission, comprising Thomas Bach, Frankie Fredericks and Goran Petersson, examined the case and Galiulina told Saturday night’s hearing at the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane that she did not know how the substance entered her body.

The IOC said in a statement that Galiulina detailed how she was treated by her mother when sick for two weeks at the end of June, and had taken medication for a heart condition on July 22 or 23.

“The athlete declared she did not take furosemide, but that she knew what it was and its effects,” the IOC said.

However, the IOC commission deemed the information provided to be unsatisfactory and ruled they were “not comfortably satisfied, as required under article 10.4 of the world anti-doping code, of the absence of an intent to enhance sport performance or mask the use of a performance-enhancing substance”.

Galiulina is a little-known gymnast on the world stage who was due to be competing at her second Olympic Games, having been eliminated in qualification at Beijing four years ago.

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