An Australian triathlete competing outside the elite divisions has been stripped of his silver medal from the world championships on the Gold Coast last year and banned for four years after testing positive to EPO.

Positive test: Guide Stephen Thompson (left) with visually impaired triathlete Gerrard Gosens.

The International Triathlon Union has announced that age group competitor Stephen Thompson failed a drug test.

He was second in the 35 to 39 age group in the sprint event at Surfers Paradise – a 750 metre swim, 20 kilometre cycle and five kilometre run – last September.

"His urine sample returned an adverse analytical finding for the non-specified substance EPO, classified under the prohibited list as a peptide hormone," the ITU said.

Thompson was given a four-year ban from competition from the date of his provisional suspension on December 19 last year.

He also competed as a guide to a visually impaired athlete, three-time Paralympic Games representative Gerrard Gosens, who was disqualified from his race as a result of the positive test.

Contacted by the Herald, Thompson said he had not doped but did not have the energy to fight the ITU given "so much going on in my personal life that isn't that positive" currently.

"I didn't take EPO," he said. "I didn't knowingly take anything …

"I tried to stick up for myself with those guys – they had a bunch of negative and positive results – and they decided to take the path that they did."

The chief executive of Triathlon Australia, former world champion and Olympian Miles Stewart, had no sympathy for Thompson, a little-known competitor from the Gold Coast.

"From my perspective, he's done the wrong thing, he's been caught, he'll do his time," he said. "We're glad that we've caught this person in the act and provided the penalties accordingly."

Stewart said age group athletes hardly ever tested positive but the organisation took drug-testing seriously.

"I'd be a lot more concerned if it was an elite athlete," he said. "But in saying that, we don't want any athlete doing the wrong thing …

"We're one of the only sports in the country that actually tests age group athletes because we feel  it's really important to provide a safe and fair environment for all our competitors racing. And when you test, sometimes you catch people out.

"So I'm happy when I see [that result] because it shows me it's working and it provides deterrents for people who want to do the wrong thing."

Stewart said he felt for Gosens who had Thompson as his guide on the Gold Coast.

"Through no fault of his own he's been stuck in a terrible situation," he said. "It's cost him valuable points towards [Paralympic] selection."

Gosens said he was "severely disappointed" by his guide's positive test, which resulted in him being disqualified even though Thompson had tested negative after the paratriathlon race.

"Those points are crucial for my qualification for 2020," he said. "It's placed things in the balance for me.

"As a totally blind athlete, they're the challenges that I don't think able-bodied athletes understand. It's about teamwork … The heartbreaking fact is that my result has been affected by another person's result two days prior."

Gosens, best known outside Paralympic events for competing on Dancing With The Stars and climbing Mt Everest, posted a call out on Facebook early last year for a guide to help him break into triathlon after previously representing Australia in goalball and distance running.

Thompson, Irish-born and then working as a lawyer, had responded.

Since testing positive, Gosens said he had apologised via email "but he has never had the courage to give me a call and say 'I'm really sorry, Gerrard'."

Sydney age group triathlete Travis Shields, who has been elevated to a bronze medal at the world championships, said he remembered how strongly Thompson had raced on the day.

"He ran past me," he said. "I remember trying to run with him and, at about 2k, he dropped me like a hot rock."

Shields was surprised by a positive test outside the elite ranks.

"I just thought age group sport was pretty clean," he said. "It's a definite surprise and a bit sad."

He felt bittersweet about getting a medal so long after the event.

"It would have been good to get on the podium but I guess it's good that he got caught."

Once commonly associated with doping among cyclists, EPO is believed to increase oxygen absorption, reduce fatigue and improve endurance for athletes.

The ITU also announced that a Portuguese triathlete, Nuno Jose Pereira e Silva, had been stripped of his silver medal in the 40 to 44 age group and banned for two years after testing positive to the stimulants ephedrine and oxilofrine at the long-distance triathlon world championships in Spain in May.

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