LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — Argentine swimmer Guillermo Bertola has been banned for four years and stripped of his 2019 Pan American Games silver medal in a doping case in which he said he received a transfusion of his mother’s blood.
The governing body of swimming said Thursday the case against the 30-year-old open-water swimmer was based on irregular blood readings in his biological passport.
When Bertola was contacted for the investigation, he blamed altitude training and the “use of a snorkel and mask with hypoxic effect,” FINA said.
He later acknowledged getting a blood transfusion in January 2018 while sick with gastrointestinal problems.