Argentine Olympic Committee President Gerhard Werthein announced that Argentine swimmer Martin Carrizo has been removed from his nation’s Olympic roster after having failed a doping test.
According to Brazilian new site Best Swimming, Carrizo tested positively for banned substance erythropoietin (EPO) after The Maria Lenk Trophy event in Rio last April, the event which also served as the Olympic Games’ swimming test event. At that competition, Carrizo raced to a silver in the 400m freestyle in a time of 3:54.45.
Immediately following, at Argentina’s National Championships meet on May 9th, Carrizo blasted a time of 15:11.59 in the men’s 1500m freestyle event. That time came within 1.4 seconds of the national record and notched a FINA A qualifying standard for the Argentine.
In addition from losing his spot on the Olympic Games roster, Carrizo is now ineligible to compete for an Open Water Olympic berth at next week’s competition in Portugal. Carrizo is also facing a potential 4-year ban from competitive swimming.
With Carrizo now off the Argentine list, the nation will be represented by just 4 swimmers in Rio:
Santiago Grassi, 100 butterfly
Virginia Bardach, 200 and 400 medley
Federico Grabich, 50, 100 and 200 free
Martin Naidich, 1500 free
Does a different swimmer get the chance to compete in the 10K qualifying race in his place?
Im so happy for justice! However it is embarrassing to know that this doping test took place in Brazil.
If this swimmer did not go to Brazil he would be saying hello to the Olympics.
As far a sI know no doping test was done at the Argentine Nationals when he did the time, but many on the national team knew that he was taking prohibited substances, thats why his former coach resigned from coaching him.
Well, glad this things come to light!
Hoping for other cheaters to fall too!
Distressing!
Nowhere nearly as distressing as the fact that the budget for France Anti-Doping Agency AFLD has been cut several times to a paltry sum. Makes you wonder how often AFLD tested their swimmers this year.
http://cyclingtips.com/2016/03/french-anti-doping-threatened-by-budget-cuts/
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/huge-funding-cuts-threaten-future-of-afld/
And here’s the FINA out of competition testing stats for 2014 (full year) and 2015 (up until Ausgust);
http://m.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Global/Issues/2015/12/11/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/Australia-Swimmers.aspx
If it was Efimova, she would still be on LOL.