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.
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