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Bastianelli suspended
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 she will appeal the decision to 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.
