The Czech Cycling Association has banned men's cyclocross elite champion Emil Hekele, 43, for four years. Hekere blamed the positive test on contaminated food.

Last January, Hekele surprisingly beat out some of the country's top professionals to win the elite men's title over Tomas Kopecky and Michael Boros of Pauwels Sausen Bingor.

In addition to the national championships, Hekele won six other cyclocross races in the 2019-2020 season, four of them in Japan. He tested positive for out-of-competition control last September 9.

"In accordance with Article 10.2 of the Directive on the Control and Punishment of Doping in Sport in the Czech Republic, Emil Hekele has been sanctioned with a four-year ban," David Purusha, chairman of the Czech Cycling Federation Disciplinary Committee, said in an announcement on the federation's website

iD.

In an earlier article in iDNEZ.cz Sport, Průša said the proceedings were delayed due to coronavirus measures and Hekele's innocent protests. Hekele claimed that the positive test was caused by a meal he ate at a restaurant while traveling with the national team, but team director Petr Drask denied this claim, pointing out that there were other players who ate at the same restaurant and that only Hekele tested positive.

"Oxandrolone and clenbuterol must have entered my system without my knowledge. Oxandrolone and clenbuterol must have entered my system without my knowledge. It probably took place during the four-day national team meeting at Viera Pod Bezdiezem," Hekele told irozhlas.cz in November.

"We cannot determine or confirm that the food is completely safe and the meat is not contaminated; a four-day training camp is also long enough for someone to intentionally give me something to drink or intentionally put a substance into my body without my knowledge."

After receiving word of his banishment, Hekele continued to deny doping in posts on his Facebook page, claiming that he had been targeted, accusing sloppy doping controls and stating that a blood test conducted at the same time was negative.

"Internally, I don't feel guilty. What matters to me is that I have never taken a banned substance. Many people would not believe this, but many others believe that I should not have to. I take it as a personal injustice," Hekele says.