The National Olympic and Sports Committee and the National Kayak-Canoe Federation were officially informed about the decision of the anti-doping commission of the International Canoe Federation concerning the doping of Sergey Tarnovski, who represented Moldova at the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games of 2016. Under the decision, the athlete will be suspended for four years since the date the blood sample was collected (July 8, 2016).

The National Kayak-Canoe Federation said Sergey Tarnovski and his lawyer Paul Green decided to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, IPN reports.

According to Paul Green, athlete Tarnovschi will immediately appeal the ICF’s decision to suspend him for four years and to withdraw his Olympic bronze medal and he has pertinent arguments to win the case. “The athlete realizes that he unintentionally consumed a banned substance from a contaminated supplement and that he must be penalized. In such a case, the World Anti-Doping Code provides that the penalty should be correlated with the cases of other sportspersons who committed the same violation. Thus, the penalty should be suspension for several months, not for four years. In this connection, the athlete should also keep the Olympic medal,” the lawyer stated for the National Olympic and Sports Committee.