Justyna Kowalczyk

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Women’s cross country skiing
Olympic medal record
Bronze	2006 Turin	30 km mass start

Justyna Kowalczyk (born 21 January 1983 in Limanowa, Poland) is a Polish cross country skier who has been competing since 2000. She won the bronze medal in the 30 km freestyle at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, becoming the first Pole to medal in cross country skiing at the Winter Olympics.

Kowalcyk finished 2nd in the individual Sprint at the 2003 World Junior Championships. She finished 31st in the individual sprint event at the 2003 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships.

She has also won eighteen individual events at various distances of various levels since 2001.

[edit] Doping controversy and suspension

At the 2005 World Championships, she competed though she was disqualified for doping offences committed at the Under23 (U23) OPA (Alpine Nations) Intercontinental Cup competition in Oberstdorf, Germany back on January 23, 2005. On June 13, 2005, the FIS Doping Panel issued a two-year suspension (January 23, 2005 - January 22, 2007) for Kowalczyk for taking the banned substance dexamethason. This suspension was reduced to one year (January 23, 2005 - January 22, 2006) in late June 2005 when the FIS determined at a May 21, 2005 inquiry by the Polish ski association that dexamethason was a glucocorticosteroid as classified by the World Anti-Doping Agency as a specified substance on their prohibited substances list. This was appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which declared Kowalczyk's suspension de novo on December 8, 2005. This allowed Kowalczyk to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics two months later though it cost her the early part of the 2005-6 World Cup Season. She would return to competition with a win in the 5 km in the Czech Republic on December 17, 2005.