Mar 15, 2010, 13:04 GMT
Berlin - A group of renowned German haematologists said in Monday that the suspicious blood levels of banned speed skater Claudia Pechstein could come from a hereditary blood anomaly.
The five-time speed skating Olympic gold medallist Pechstein was banned by the ISU for two years as a result of abnormally high levels of reticulocytes (immature red blood cells) found in several blood tests. The ban was later confirmed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
However, the head of the German Institute for Haematology and Oncology (DGHO), Gerhard Ehninger, told a press conference Monday in Berlin that the 38-year-old suffered from a form of auto-hemolytic anemia that resulted in the high reticulocyte count.
Ehninger was critical of Pechstein's test results last summer but has now concluded that, in his medical opinion, the two-year ban handed down to the skater was untenable.
'We now know what the causes of the high high levels of reticulocytes were. There are no doubts,' he said.
Around 800,000 people suffer from the disorder in Germany, including, according to doctor Andreas Weimann of Berlin's Charite Hospital, Pechstein's father.
The athlete, whose house was searched earlier this month by investigators from Germany's Federal Crime Office (BKA) as part of an ongoing investigation into doping, has always denied doping and never failed a drug test. She now hopes to clear her name.
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