March 30, 2013   (Lausanne, Switzerland) – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Panel has upheld the appeal of Estonia’s Andrus Veerpalu against a three-year ban by the International Ski Federation (FIS) following an out-of-competition doping control on Jan. 29, 2011 in Otepää, Estonia where Veerpalu tested positive for the use of recombinant human growth hormone (HGH).

Following the positive test, Veerpalu, 42, appealed the ban claiming the test was “not trustworthy.” He testified before CAS last summer and the judgment has been repeatedly delayed until finally on March 25 the CAS released their findings and decision.

The Panel found that while it’s likely that Veerpalu did take HGH, “…the FIS failed to meet the applicable standard of proof with respect to the procedure followed to set the aspects of the decision limits (essential to avoid the risk of the of having “false positive” tests).

“In conclusion, the Panel noted that there were many factors in this case which tend to indicate that Andrus Veerpalu did in fact himself administer exogenous hGH, but that, for the reason that procedural flaws have been found in the statistical side of the WADA studies establishing the decision limits, the violation of the FIS Anti-doping Rules cannot be upheld on appeal. Therefore, the ban imposed by the decision of the FIS Doping Panel has been overturned by the Panel.”

Veerpalu is considered to be Estonia’s most successful male cross-county skier winning gold in the 15km classic race at both the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games and the 2006 Olympic Games in Torino, as well as scoring many World Cup wins. The affair lead to the resignation of Jüri Järv, the head of Estonia’s ski association and also forced Mati Alaver, coach of Estonia’s national team, out as well.

CAS Release

CAS Full Decision