Doping ban

The see-sawing doping saga surrounding Germany's most decorated Winter Olympian, speed skater Claudio Pechstein, has ended after an arbitration court said it did not have the jurisdiction to rehear her case.

Pechstein had been hoping the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) would allow a re-trial over her ban for doping, which, in the interim, would have permitted her to compete at the Vancouver Winter Olympics currently underway. The CAS had already upheld her ban last November.

She had earlier taken her case to the Supreme Court of Switzerland, in an attempt to have her ban overturned, but that court ruled against an appeal in February.

Pechstein has been trying to overturn a ban imposed in July 2009 by the International Skating Union, which found her to have abnormally high levels immature red blood cells. The sports body banned her for two years from the sport. She insists she has never taken a banned substance.

Pechstein is Germany's most successful winter Olympian, with five gold, two silver and two bronze medals under her belt. She has said in the past that she was prepared to take her case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

dfm/dpa/Reuters

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