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Weightlifting-Russian Lovchev to miss Olympics due to positive drugs test

MOSCOW, March 8 (Reuters) - Russian world weightlifting champion Alexei Lovchev will miss this year's Rio Olympics after his 'B' sample for the banned substance Ipamorelin returned positive, R-Sport news agency reported on Tuesday. The 26-year-old, who is also the 105kg world record holder, was found to have traces of Ipamorelin in his 'A' sample and was provisionally suspended on Dec. 24. "The 'B' sample was tested at an anti-doping laboratory in Montreal and gave a positive result that the weightlifter had a banned substance in his system," R-Sport said. Russia was suspended from world athletics last year after a doping investigation exposed widespread cheating and corruption. (Reporting by Dmitriy Rogovitskiy, editing by Ed Osmond)