U.S. team’s star banned on first day

TURIN, Italy – On the day the Olympics’ opening ceremony, the United States’ top contender for a medal in skeleton was banned from the Torino Games Friday.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) gave Zach Lund a one-year suspension for a positive test for a steroid masking agent found in his hair-replacement product.

Lund, who attended an arbitration hearing to decide the issue in Torino Thursday, voluntarily surrendered his Olympic credential and planned to check out of the Olympic Village Friday night.

He had argued he didn’t know the drug, finasteride, had been added to the list of prohibited substances in 2005 and said he declared its use on the Doping Control Form in every drug test he took.

“I honestly believed I could get through this. The fact I didn’t is very upsetting and disappointing to me,” said Lund in a conference call.

The CAS panel of three arbiters appeared sympathetic with his argument and said it was “entirely satisfied that Mr. Lund was not a cheat.” However, anti-doping agencies continually stress that it is the athlete’s responsibility to know what substances are on the prohibited list.

The arbitration panel was disturbed that no one would have alerted Lund to the drug’s new status when he declared it in tests in 2005. “The Panel found this failure very surprising and had the feeling that Mr. Lund was not well served by the anti-doping organizations,” it said.

Lund said he now intends to stay in Torino for a day or two “to get my story out. I don’t think what happened is fair.”