Henrique Barbosa and Nicholas Santos have been dropped from the world championships roster by Brazil after they tested positive for a banned substance at the Maria Lenk Trophy in May.

The Brazilian federation (CBDA) made the decision at a meeting late last night Europe time. The move highlights an anomaly in anti-doping rules. Barbosa and Santos tested positive for furosemide along with Cesar Cielo, Olympic and world sprint freestyle champion, and Vinicius Waked. All had taken the same supplement and their claim that the product was contaminated with the banned diuretic by the pharmacy that made up the supplement was accepted by a Brazilian anti-doping panel. 

They were all handed warnings. All are as innocent or guilty as the next man. But where Cielo remains on schedule to defend his world 50m and 100m freestyle crowns in Shanghai from July 24, Barbosa and Santos will not now make the trip because their Shanghai qualifying results at the Maria Lenk Trophy are automatically annulled as a result of the positive test. 

Waked, who did not make the Shanghai cut, highlights another crease in anti-doping rules. It is his second offence within 18 months: if authorities accept Brazil's warning as satisfactory, then the swimmer will escape a two-year ban because the WADA Code no longer works to strict liability, allowing those who test positive but bear no fault and were not negligent to escape the multiple offence rule.

Barbosa will be replaced in Shanghai by Tales Cerdeira, while Santos will be replaced by Marcos Macedo, who clocked 49.42 in the 100m freestyle and by a touch weakens Brazil's prospects of making the relay podium in Shanghai. At the same time, the CBDA selected Etienne Medeiros as a substitute for Fabíola Molina, who is serving a two-month doping suspension that cut her out of action in Shanghai.  

As reported by SwimNews yesterday, FINA will press for an urgent CAS appeal, specifically aimed at the Cielo case, before world titles, if it finds grounds to disagree with Brazil's decision to impose only warnings and thus try to avoid a Contadorian crisis in which a major world-class athlete competes in a major event while awaiting a doping hearing.

The latest four cases train a super-trouper on the inconsistencies of an anti-doping regime in which athletes who test positive get a warning, while others, such as Albert Subirats (VEN) is slapped with a one-year ban because his federation failed to file his whereabouts paperwork with FINA.