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Winter Olympics 2018: Russian bobsledder wearing anti-doping jumper tests positive

Nadezhda Sergeeva has denied she took a banned substance as her team confirmed she wasn't issued any medication.

Nadezhda Sergeeva has denied she took a banned substance as her team confirmed she wasn't issued any medication. Photo: Youtube

A Russian Olympic athlete who declared her anti-doping stance on a jumper emblazoned with the slogan, “I Don’t Do Doping, I Am Za Sport’, has tested positive for a banned substance.

Nadezhda Sergeeva, the pilot of the Russian two-woman bobsled team that finished 12th in Pyeonchang, was captured wearing the sweatshirt at the Winter Olympic Village in Pyeongchang in a YouTube video that has since been deleted.

But the anti-doping stance fell short on Friday, when Russian bobsled federation president Alexander Zubkov announced Sergeeva had allegedly tested positive for a banned heart medication called trimetazdine, commonly used for angina sufferers.

ZASPORT is the official clothes supplier to the Russian Olympic Committee with many of the designs donned by Russian athletes at the South Korean competition.

The 30-year-old bobsledder has denied taking the drug, with the Russian bobsled president announcing, “She confirms she took no such medication and the team confirms she was not issued any medication.”

Zubkov won gold medals in the two-man and four-man bobsleigh at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, but was disqualified by the International Olympic Committee in November 2017.

She is the second Russian Olympic athlete in the 2018 Winter Olympics to flunk a doping test, after Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky was stripped of his bronze medal after agreeing his doping samples contained meldonium.

Krushelnitsky and his wife, Anastasia Bryzgalova’s medals will be awarded to Norway athletes Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who had originally finished fourth.

The ABC reported hours after Krushelnitsky was stripped of his medal, the Russian Olympic Committee said it had paid a $15 million fee as part of criteria to have its team reinstated at the Pyeongchang Games.

The Russian team was banned from the games because of rife doping at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

As a result of the scandal, the IOC banned Russian athletes from wearing national symbols at the Olympic Games.

The IOC will decide on Saturday whether the Russian curling team will be formally reinstated to participate in the closing ceremony.

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