Iranian weightlifter Ali-Hosseini’s lifetime ban cut to 12 years

TEHRAN,Nov.2(MNA)--The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has lessened Iran’s weightlifter Saeid Ali-Hosseini’s lifetime ban for a second doping offense to 12 years. Ali-Hosseini, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid methandienone, has been banned from competition until October 2021, when he will be 33. He tested positive for steroids on October 24, 2009. He had also failed a test in September 2006 that resulted in a two-year ban. “We are going to decrease Ali-Hosseini’s 12-year ban. I am not satisfied with the result and try to lift his ban. I want to see him at the 2012 Olympic Games as a participant. Our attorneys will do their best to solve the problem,” head of Iran’s Weightlifting Federation Hossein Rezazadeh said. The court eased a lifetime ban imposed by the International Weightlifting Federation because of the circumstances of Ali-Hosseini’s first offense. CAS accepted that a subsequently banned coach doped unwitting Iranian lifters with clenbuterol. Ali-Hosseini returned from that two-year ban to set several junior world records. CAS described methandienone as the “classic steroids-of-choice for doping weightlifters.” Ali-Hosseini still holds three junior men's world records in the over-105 kilogram category, set at the Asian Weightlifting Championship in South Korea in 2008.