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GENEVA, May 29, 2009 (AFP) – World sport’s top courts on Friday doubled a one-year ban on Italian cyclist Marta Bastianelli for doping, ruling in favor of the International Cycling Union (UCI) which had sought a tougher sanction.

CAS said in a statement that it decided to rule in favor of UCI as Bastianelli’s positive test was “attributable to her own fault and negligence, which in the circumstances, is significant.”

Therefore, she should serve a two-year ban starting from July 5, 2008, it added. Bastianelli missed the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for flenfluramine, a stimulant, at the women’s European under-23 championships in Verbania, northeast Italy, in July.

She was banned for a year until August 6, 2009 by the Italian Anti-Doping Tribunal.

The cyclist filed an appeal late last year with the CAS against the one-year ban saying that she had taken the drug in a bid to lose weight.

A month later, UCI filed an appeal with the CAS to increase the sanction.

The CAS panel noted that Bastianelli failed to check with her team’s recommended doctors about the drugs and also ingested the dieting pills without “a medical need and contrary to the advice of one of her physicians.”