Oussama Mellouli was banned for 18 months for testing positive for amphetamines at a competition on November 30, 2006. The ban dates back to when he used the banned substance making him still eligible to compete next year in the Beijing Olympics.

Mellouli won gold medals for the 800-metre freestyle and silver in the 400 freestyle in March at the world championships in Melbourne, Australia. He will be stripped of those medals.

“The swimmer admitted that he had taken an Adderall pill two days earlier to prevent him from falling asleep so that he could finish writing a report which counted towards his final university diploma. If the swimmer was indeed guilty of negligence, such negligence was not sufficiently serious to suspend him for two years, which would have meant an automatic ban from the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing,” the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel ruled.

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