Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati will be allowed to keep his Olympic gold medal despite testing positive for marijuana, an international sports arbitration panel ruled yesterday.
The panel, set up by the IOC's Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), decided there was no legal basis for disqualifying Rebagliati - and he should never have been tested for the drug.
"The (IOC) executive board decision has been reversed so he can have his medal," CAS official Jean-Philippe Rochat said after the decision which showed Olympic chiefs need to do a great deal of work on clarifying their doping rules.
"The reason is an absence of a legal basis. The main point is that there can only be a sanction if there is an agreement between the international federation and the IOC."
In what appeared to be a rebuke to the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Rochat added: "The message that comes out from this is: if you want to take sanctions you should have the legal basis clarified in the rules."
CAS is an independent body set up by the IOC to prevent sport disputes being dragged into civil courts.
Rebagliati, who won his sport's first Olympic gold medal in Sunday's giant slalom, was disqualified by the IOC on Wednesday after post-race urine samples showed traces of marijuana.
Canada immediately appealed and said the racer had not used marijuana for 10 months but had been exposed to other people's smoke, especially in his home town of Whistler where team officials said many young people smoked the substance.
After waiting nervously for the decision for several hours in a central Nagano hotel, Canadian team chief Carol Anne Letheren said the country was relieved by the decision. But she immediately called on sports officials to clarify their rules.
As the IOC decision was overturned, Rebagliati was ending five hours of police questioning over whether Japan's strict drug laws had been breached.
He left the police station, in Nakano near Nagano, with several officers. A police spokesman said his hotel room at the Shiga Kogen resort would be searched, but he was not in custody.
The arbitration panel ruling was a dramatic end to a day which started with Norwegian crosscountry hero Bjorn Daehlie winning a record sixth gold medal. Daehlie became the greatest male athlete in Winter Olympic history on a drama-packed Thursday at the Nagano Games.
The Norwegian, who won three golds in 1992 at Albertville and two in 1994 at Lillehammer, has the chance on Saturday to become the top athlete of the Winter Olympics, male or female, when he contests the 15 km freestyle cross-country event.
There was more glory for Norway when speed skater Aadne Sondral won the men's 1,500 metres in world record time of one minute 47.87 seconds. It was the fourth world record in speed skating, with three being set in the 5,000 metres on Sunday.
Russian cross-country skier Larissa Lazutina became the first double gold medallist at Nagano when she won the 10 km pursuit, proof of the success of what she describes as her bad attitude to authority. She also won a silver earlier this week in the 15 km cross-country.
Snowboarders Gian Simmen of Switzerland and Germany's Nicola Thost battled rain and controversy to take the snoboarding half pipe event gold medals.
There were bleak moments on the sixth day of the games. Bad weather forced new postponements of Alpine skiing events and the Olympic debut sport of snowboarding suffered another blow before Rebagliati's reprieve.
Snow, rain and fog forced the Games' troubled showpiece men's downhill to be put off for the third time this week. The men's combined downhill and two women's downhill training sessions were also shelved.
The Austrian team said it had ejected from the Games its most flamboyant character - star snowboarder Martin Freinademetz - for wild partying.
