European cross-country champ Fsiha cops four-year doping ban

European cross-country champion Robel Fsiha of Sweden has been banned for four years after "artificial testosterone" was found in his sample, the Swedish anti-doping authorities said Thursday. "We have decided that Robel Fsiha is suspended for four years from February 5, 2020 until February 4, 2024," Ake Thimfors, president of the Swedish anti-doping board, told AFP.

Fsiha, a 24-year-old of Eritrean origin, has until June 1 to appeal the ban. Having arrived as a refugee in Sweden in 2013, Fsiha started running internationally for his adopted country at the end of 2018, and won the European crown a year later, last December in Lisbon.

Fsiha underwent a doping control when at a training camp in Ethiopia on November 25, 2019 -- just two weeks before his European triumph. He told Swedish media he had taken a cough medicine, saying he was "saddened" by the ban. AFP SSC SSC