The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) based in Lausanne, SUI, turned down appeals by David Meca (ESP) and Igor Majcen (SLO) against their four-year suspensions by FINA last August.

The two open water swimmers tested positive for the steroid nandrolone after competing in Salvador de Bahia (BRA) on Jan 31, 1999.

Nandrolone has been implicated in a rash of positive tests including 1992 Olympic champion sprinter Linford Christie (GBR), Czech tennis player Petr Korda and Christophe Dugarry (FRA) member of the World Soccer Cup winning team.

The swimmers attempted to use the boar defence. Meca and Majcen argued that their bodies produced high levels of the steroid because they had gorged themselves for the five days previous on a Brazilian stew containing boar meet, liver, kidneys, and intestines.

Meca was involved in an earlier protest last fall when he swam in chains from San Francisco to Alcatraz island.