Gibilisco's two-year doping ban reinstated

ROME, Oct 26 (Reuters) Former pole vault world champion Giuseppe Gibilisco must serve a two-year doping ban despite winning an earlier appeal, a sporting judge said today.

Gibilisco, who won gold at the 2003 worlds in Paris and bronze at the Athens Olympics a year later, was initially banned in July by the Italian Athletics Federation (FIDAL) after a request from the country's anti-doping prosecutor.

However, the 28-year-old won an appeal in September with a FIDAL spokesman saying the ban had been lifted because Gibilisco had never failed a doping test.

Now the ban has been reinstated by a sporting judge, although Gibilisco said he would go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to prolong the saga, one of several recent long-running and complicated doping cases in Italy.

''I am taking this sentence with a smile like the other times,'' Gibilisco told reporters. ''It isn't finished here. I will appeal to CAS.'' Gibilisco is accused of being implicated in an Italian police investigation into doping in sport which began in 2004.

The probe has focused on the relationship between sportsmen and doctor Carlo Santuccione, who is alleged to have supplied them with banned substances.

The Italian Olympic Committee's (CONI) anti-doping prosecutor Ettore Torri also managed to push through a three-month ban on top cyclist Danilo Di Luca for his links to Santuccione earlier this month.

REUTERS BJR RK1800