A doping test of the top 3 male and female finishers by the Spanish National Anti-Doping Commission at the Zarautz Triathlon in the Basque region of Spain, resulted in a postive A sample, 3athlon.de reports.

The event took place on June 14, 2008 and 3rd place finisher Francisco Pontano from Argentina was found to have ephedrine, a sympathomimetic amine in his system. The athlete was made aware of the fact and it is reported that people close to him pointed at cold medications as a possible source.

5 weeks later, Pontano won the 2008 Ford Ironman Lake Placid in a time of 8:43:42. The result and release date of the B sample is not known at this time and it is also unclear what the WTC, NA Sports and the US Anti Doping Agency know regarding this matter. Slowtwitch is currently digging deeper into this situation and along those lines is inquiring with various officials to find out whether they have been made aware of the Pontano A sample and what testing was done in Lake Placid.

We'll update this story as more information becomes available.