Ali-Hosseini tested positive for steroids on Oct. 24, 2009.
He also failed a test - resulting in a two-year ban - in September 2006, IWF
legal counsel Monika Ungar said. The penalty for a second doping offense is a
life ban.
Ungar said the ban was announced only now because it took
this long for the IWF process to be completed.
Iranian media reported that the 22-year-old Ali-Hosseini
accused his country's weightlifting federation of fabricating the case against
him.
“I have not carried doping. This was a plot and I wish the
traitors pay for it,” Ali-Hosseini told the Shargh newspaper.
Ali-Hosseini still holds three junior men's world records in
the over-105 kilogram category set in the Asian Weightlifting Championship in
South Korea in 2008, when he lifted 206 kilograms in the snatch and 245
kilograms in the clean and jerk, totaling 451 kilograms.
Ungar said that the IWF raised its ban for a first positive
doping test to four years from two years in March 2008, but cases have
continued to pile up.
“Unfortunately, the tendency is not decreasing,” Ungar said.
The IWF lists 24 athletes who have been banned so far in
2010, including one lifetime ban. Ali-Hosseini's ban is listed under 2009
cases, along with 43 others.
