FINA Suspends Foschi for 2 Years

American distance swimmer Jessica Foschi, who tested positive last summer for an anabolic steroid at a meet in Southern California, has been suspended for two years by FINA, the international governing body for swimming.

The ban, which was announced Monday from FINA’s headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, is retroactive to Aug. 4, 1995 when Foschi tested positive for mesterolone after finishing third in the 1,500-meter freestyle at the U.S. summer national championships at Pasadena.

The 15-year-old from Old Brookville, N.Y., can continue to compete domestically and would be sidelined for one major international competition, the short-course world championships at Sweden in April 1997, according to officials from U.S. Swimming.

That was hardly reassuring to Foschi, her parents and her lawyer. From the beginning, the Foschis have maintained they have no knowledge of how her urine sample showed such an unusually high amount of mesterolone, an indication of either long-term or recent use. And there was even a suggestion of possible sabotage of her water supply.

Her father, Bob Foschi, angrily vowed to fight the suspension.

“The hearing conducted last Thursday by the top three officials of FINA was an absolute farce,” he said. “Two of the three had made repeated public announcements that Jessica had to be suspended for two years prior to the hearing and before they had received any information about the case, and the third official slept through the three-hour hearing.”

The next step is another appeal to a larger group of FINA officials, and then to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which is also in Lausanne.

Foschi’s attorney, Mark Levinstein, of Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., anticipates the appeal reaching the Court of Arbitration for Sport by August, and made a point of locating the court when he was in Switzerland on Thursday, figuring the next FINA appeal will be futile.

“The good news is they don’t care about her, and that’s also the bad news,” said Levinstein, who has previously represented Nancy Kerrigan, among other Olympic athletes. “I have no doubt this decision will be reversed.”

Said Bob Foschi: “FINA has never won a case before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and as soon as we are again before an independent judge or arbitrator, Jessica will be vindicated. The sad part of the story is that the USOC and United States Swimming have refused to help Jessica because they are afraid of FINA.”

Foschi, who missed making the U.S. Olympic team in the 800-meter freestyle, had been banned for two years in a ruling by U.S. Swimming in February but was then put on probation after the American Arbitration Assn. ruled she was “improperly punished for a violation she never committed.”

U.S. women’s assistant coach Mark Schubert was not surprised by the FINA ruling, saying: “That’s originally why the president of U.S. Swimming [Carol Zaleski] protested the original decision [of probation]. I think they’re just following the rules. I don’t think they had any choice. But you can’t help but be concerned if things are as they are portrayed [of sabotage]. You’re torn because you want to see people follow the rules in this area.”

Before Foschi, the last U.S. swimmer to test positive was Angel Meyers at the 1988 Olympic trials. After serving her suspension, she came back in 1991 and made the 1996 Olympic team in three individual events.