ROME, Oct 15, 2008 (AFP) – Italian cyclist Marta Bastianelli, the 2007 women’s road race world champion, has been handed a one-year ban by the anti-doping tribunal of the Italian Olympic Committee for failing a drugs test.

Bastianelli, 21, missed the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for flenfluramine, a stimulant, at the European under-23 championships in Verbania, northeast Italy, in July.

The year ban was backdated to August 7 and will run until August 6, 2009.

Bastianelli’s lawyer Giuseppe Napoleone said they would now appeal the case at the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

The rider protested her innocence before the tribunal in August, saying that her local pharmacist had given her a dietary concoction of herbs that included the stimulant.

File Photo by: CorVos Pro