The Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky has been formally charged with a doping offense by the Court of Arbitration for Sport after testing positive for the banned substance Meldonium. He is now likely to be stripped of his mixed curling bronze medal, won with his wife Anastasia Bryzgalova last week.

There are also growing questions about the International Olympic Committee’s decision to invite 168 Russians to compete here under a neutral flag, despite the country’s massive state-sponsored doping program in Sochi four years’ ago.

But as Krushelnitsky was leaving the Winter Olympics on Monday morning his Olympic Athletes of Russia team-mates were insisting that he was innocent. “We were all shocked when we found out,” said Viktoria Moiseeva. “Of course we very much hope it was some kind of mistake. With us it’s not faster, higher, stronger; it’s about being more accurate. I can’t imagine what kind of drugs you could use in curling … so it’s very hard to believe.”

Krushelnitsky has told Russian officials he fears a team-mate who was not selected for the Winter Olympics spiked his drink with Meldonium at a training camp before he travelled to South Korea. The drug, which was banned in 2016, led to Russian tennis player and former world No 1 Maria Sharapova being barred from competition for 15 months.

More about the ban of this Russian curler at The Guardian.