FINA Releases Statement on Lifting Albert Subirats Ban; Court of Arbitration for Sport Also Releases Statement

PHOENIX, Arizona, August 26. FINA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport have issued statements detailing the process by which swimmer Albert Subirats was reinstated for competition after the Venezuelan appealed his one-year suspension for missing out-of-competition drug tests.

As we mentioned earlier yesterday, Subirats was given the suspension when the Venezuelan Swimming Federation neglected to fully inform FINA of Subirats' whereabouts for the purposes of locating him for drug tests. The suspension kept Subirats, a bronze medalist in the 100 fly at the 2007 world championships, out of this year's worlds in Shanghai, and if upheld, would have also prevented him from competing at the 2012 Olympics, according to the now-famous International Olympic Committee's Rule 45, as well as the 2016 Games. Lifting the ban means Subirats will be able to represent Venezuela at the Pan-American Games in October, and can compete at the London Olympics.

Full text of FINA statement:

Following the information appeared in some media related with the case of swimmer Albert Subirats (VEN), FINA would like to clarify that:

1. According to a FINA Doping Panel decision on June 21, 2011 , a one-year suspension was imposed to swimmer Albert Subirats (VEN) following three whereabouts failures;

2. The swimmer appealed of this decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), in accordance with FINA Rules;

3. The CAS Arbitrator, on August 25, 2011 decided to cancel the FINA sanction and to waive any suspension to swimmer Albert Subirats (VEN).

Full text of CAS statement:

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has upheld the appeal filed by the swimmer Albert Subirats (Venezuela) against the decision of the International Swimming Federation (FINA) to suspend him for one year following three failures to notify
whereabouts information. The CAS has ruled that Albert Subirats was not guilty of any antidoping rule violation as he did not receive any failure notice before the third whereabouts filing failure.

Since 2006 Albert Subirats has always submitted his whereabouts forms to the Venezuelan Swimming Federation (VSF), which has always, until 2010, forwarded his forms to FINA on time. For the first quarter of 2010, the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, the VSF did not forward the swimmer's forms. During that period, he committed thus 3 filing failures. FINA notified the athlete's filing failures to VSF in writing, requesting VSF to inform
him about the failures. However, VSF forwarded the three FINA letters to Subirats for the first time on 2 February 2011, i.e. only after the third violation had already occurred. No failure notification was ever sent directly by FINA to the athlete. By decision of 21 June 2011, the FINA Doping Panel imposed a one-year period of ineligibility on Subirats for failure of having provided his whereabouts information.

The CAS has ruled that when the anti doping organization chooses as recipient of the failure notices a third party, even if such third party is the one chosen by the athlete to make his or her filing, and that third party failed to comply with the applicable requirements, the athlete has a valid objection to an allegation of non-receipt of one or more failure notices.

Since it was undisputed that Albert Subirats did not receive any failure notice before the third whereabouts filing failure, the existence of a second and a third violation could not be reproached to him. As a consequence, the appeal was upheld, the FINA Decision overturned, the second and third filing failure for the fourth quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011 cancelled and the swimmer's results obtained after 3 January 2011 reinstated.

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