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British Sprinter Stripped of Medal for Doping


British sprinter Mark Lewis-Francis has been stripped of his 60m silver medal from the European Indoor Championships after testing positive for marijuana.

Small traces of the drug were detected in his test sample after the March 5 meet in Madrid, Spain, but he claims he ingested it passively.

Lewis-Francis said he does not smoke marijuana but may have been in the presence of those who do and must have passively inhaled their smoke.

UK Athletics issued Lewis-Francis with a public warning but he was not suspended because he accepted the substance was in his sample. The silver medal now goes to Frenchman Ronald Pognon, with Ukraine's Kostyantyn Vasyukov moving up to bronze. Britain's Jason Gardener won the gold.

Lewis-Francis won a gold medal at last year's Athens Olympics as part of Britain's 400-meter relay team.

Some information for this report provided by AP.

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