Greece’s former 400m hurdles Olympic champion, Fani Halkia, will be serving a ban of two years after she tested positive during a dope test at the Beijing Games, as per an announcement by the Greek athletics federation.

The decision to ban Halkia was confirmed by the athletics federation; this decision was taken by its judicial committee that decided to impose a ban as punishment to the former star.

From Foxsports.com.au:

A gold medallist at Athens in 2004 Halkia was expelled from the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for the banned steroid Methyltrienolone.

Halkia, her coach and two other athletes who failed tests also face maximum sentences of five years in prison in Greece over their respective cases.

The four suspects deny any wrongdoing and Halkia claims she was the victim of sabotage.

The same drug had previously been found in the samples of over a dozen Greek athletes in other disciplines, severely embarrassing Greek authorities in the run-up to Beijing 2008.

Legal representation in Greece was hired by the International Olympic Committee that sued coach of Halkia for bringing damage to its reputation.