Austria’s Rainer Schoenfelder escapes with a warning on drug violation{mosimage}Reigning World Cup slalom champion Rainer Schoenfelder received a warning from the Austrian Ski Federation on Tuesday for failing a drug test during the season. Schoenfelder had taken medicine to fight the flu without knowing it contained the banned stimulant, he said.

Schoenfelder tested positive for the banned stimulant Etilephrine on March 27 at the Austrian slalom championships. He could have received a two-year ban, but the federation only “explicitly warned” him, giving him the minimum penalty.

Schoenfelder is more fortunate than Alain Baxter of Scotland, who was stripped of his slalom bronze medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics and received a three-month ban because he tested positive for the banned substance methamphetamine which he maintained was contained in a nasal inhaler.

Schoenfelder won the slalom World Cup title with 630 points. Kalle Palander of Finland was second, with 595 points. But 80 of Schoenfelder’s points came in a controversial World Cup race in Park City, Utah, in November, where Schoenfelder was originaly disqualified but then reinstated, after arguing that a course worker had interfered with his run.

A pop music star in Austria, Schoenfelder is one of the World Cup’s most colorful personalities. After the verdict was announced, Schoenfelder said “taking drugs was, is and always will be a taboo.”

— From staff and wire reports