On the ice

The Swiss Supreme Court has issued an emergency ruling granting Pechstein's appeal against a controversial blood doping ban, which will allow her to compete in Friday's World Cup race in Salt Lake City in the United States.

The ruling will apply only for the race in Salt Lake, which is the last qualification venue for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games - most likely Pechstein's final Olympics. She has already attempted to appeal the doping ban, imposed by the International Skating Union (ISU) in February, but so far the courts have upheld the controversial ruling.

"If Claudia was not allowed to take part (in Salt Lake City) then the Olympics would be dead for her," lawyer Simon Bergmann told reporters. "But if her appeal was successful then she would have suffered irreparable damage."

No positive confirmation of doping

Results of a blood scan following a World Championships race in Norway in February showed no traces of performance-enhancing drugs but did find unusually high levels of reticulocyte (immature blood cells).

In a 66-page ruling, the international Court of Arbitration for Sport withheld the ISU ban, saying the high reticulocyte levels in Pechstein's blood sample could only be explained by "illegal manipulation of her own blood."

Pechstein, who hails from Berlin, is Germany's most successful Olympic athlete, with a total of nine Olympic medals and six World Championship titles. She won her first Olympic gold medal in the 5,000-meter race at the Lillehammer Winter Games in 1994.

glb/Reuters/dpa

Editor: Trinity Hartman