2 Russian biathletes banned based on doping lab data

MOSCOW (AP) — Two Russian biathletes have been banned for doping based on computer data from a laboratory in Moscow.

The International Biathlon Union says it handed four-year bans to Alexander Chernyshov and Alexander Pechyonkin because of “aggravating circumstances (participating in an organized doping scheme).”

The cases relied on information from the lab database, which held records of years of drug testing at a time when Russian officials routinely covered up cases.

There was no immediate word on two other ongoing biathlon cases using the lab data. The athletes in those cases are Olympic gold medalists Evgeny Ustyugov and Svetlana Sleptsova.

Another Russian, Ekaterina Glazyrina, was banned for two years in 2018 because evidence of her drug use was covered up prior to the 2014 Olympics.