Japan skater Saito tests positive for doping, is first villain at Pyeonchang

Pyeongchang, Feb. 13: American teenager Chloe Kim and Austrian ski ace Marcel Hirscher triumphantly lit up the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Tuesday as the Games were hit by their first doping scandal.

Seventeen- year- old Kim snatched a stunning gold medal in the women’s halfpipe snowboarding, while Hirscher’s long hunt for an Olympic title finally ended.

In the first doping case of the 2018 Games, 21year- old short- track speed skater Kei Saito became the only Japanese ever to test positive at a Winter Olympics.

Saito failed an out- ofcompetition test prior to the event, the anti- doping authority said in a statement, adding that he tested positive for acetalozamide, a banned diuretic which is considered a masking agent.

The CAS statement said Saito had left the athletes’ Olympic Village voluntarily and would be provisionally suspended from the Olympics and other competitions pending a full investigation.

Saito was a member of Japan’s 3,000m relay team that finished third at the 2013 and 2014 world junior championships.

He was pencilled in as a substitute for the 5,000m on Tuesday.

Austrian star Hirscher bagged an emotional Olympic gold at the age of 28 when he produced a brilliant slalom run to storm to a victory in the men’s alpine combined.

Hirscher has been the outstanding skier in his speciality for years with 55 career World Cup wins.

But one prize had always eluded him — an Olympic gold medal. His previous best was a slalom silver from Sochi four years ago.

— AFP