HOCHFILZEN, Austria (AP) Ekaterina Glazyrina of Russia was suspended on suspicion of doping by the International Biathlon Union, hours before she was to race at the world championships on Friday.
Glazyrina was suspended based on a report by World Anti-Doping Agency investigator Richard McLaren. He accused the national anti-doping agency, known as RUSADA, and a drug-testing lab of covering up hundreds of failed tests.
The IBU said ''several samples of the athlete may have contained prohibited substances, and doping controls conducted by RUSADA may have been tampered (with).''
The 29-year-old Glazyrina was to compete in the sprint race, and was replaced by teammate Irina Uslugina.
Glazyrina raced but did not win a medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where Russian officials are accused of swapping drug test samples.
Her suspension comes in a difficult week for the IBU, which was pressured by athletes into holding a congress to discuss toughening doping penalties. Following that, the IBU board said it plans to take the 2021 world championships away from Russia.
Separately, Austrian police raided the Kazakhstan team's hotel late Wednesday and seized medical equipment and drugs as part of an investigation into possible breaches of anti-doping law.
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