File updated with statement from Alberto Pinto, coach to Cesar Cielo, in which he tells Bestswimming that his charge is on target for three gold medals at world titles in Shanghai from July 24.

Brazilian television is telling viewers that the pharmacy alleged to have contaminated a food supplement that was deemed by a doping panel to have led to positive doping tests for Olympic and world sprint freestyle champion Cesar Cielo and three other Brazilian swimmers has denied the accusations. 

The R7 news programme Jornal da Record is reporting that the Anna Terra Pharmacy in Santa Bárbara D'Oeste, the birthplace of Cielo in the Sao Paulo region in 1987 denies any cross contamination in its laboratory. The programme's presenter, standing outside the pharmacy in question, went on to say that Cielo has refused interviews and has told friends that he has considered quitting the sport.

Last Friday, the Confederação Brasileira de Desportos Aquáticos (CBDA) issued warnings to Cielo, Nicholas Santos, Henrique Barbosa and Vinicius Waked, after they tested positive for furosemide, on the banned list in part because of its ability to serve as a masking agent as well as a substance used for rapid weight loss, at the Maria Lenk Trophy in May. 

Cielo, Olympic 50m freestyle champion, world 50m and 100m freestyle champion and world record holder in both events, made a statement in which he said that the doping panel members who heard the cases and opted for a warning rather than imposing a ban of up to two years, had accepted evidence that the food supplement taken by all four swimmers had been prepared in haste and contamination at the pharmacy was to blame. 

The pharmacy's reported denial calls more than Cielo's statement into question. Dr Eduardo De Rose, of the Brazilian Olympic Committee's anti-doping team and a member of the panel that heard the latest cases in Brazil, told reporters: "We analysed various factors in arriving at our decision. The urine samples show that Furosemide did not mask any other substance. They were not to blame. How could they have known that the supplement they were taking was contaminated? 

"It [the supplement] was made by the same pharmacy as always, in Santa Bárbara D'Oeste. There was no negligence. We believed that it was not just to punish them."

Yesterday, FINA told SwimNews that it would seek urgent appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport if it found reason to disagree with the Brazilian decision. If confirmed, the pharmacy denial today would appear to provide the international federation with concrete reason to take up the case with WADA at CAS, given that the issue of a warning was based on "evidence" of cross-contamination that preceded direct reference to a specific laboratory in Santa Bárbara D'Oeste by one of the members of the doping panel that heard the cases of the four swimmers in Brazil. 

While FINA awaits the paperwork on the cases, including details of the levels of the banned drug in the adverse samples, and the ruling from the CBDA, its lawyers may well feel the urge to call representatives of the laboratory at the centre of the storm to get word from the horse's mouth and enable the federation to shoot down the R7 report or confirm that its news line, while bad, is good.

Meanwhile, Alberto Pinto (Albertinho), coach to Cielo, has told Brazil's leading swimming website, Cielo said what he wanted to say in a statement, bestswimming: "My energy is focussed on rebuilding his [Cielo's] spirit so that we can return from Shanghai with three gold medals (50m and 100m freestyle, 50m butterfly). Cesar is a swimmer who controls all factors: foundations, the body, the emotions. This situation is new, but will tackle it head on. In Paris, he showed himself and his rivals that he is the man to beat. Now its a case of not losing focus and rolling on to the world titles."

Cielo had missed a day of training for the doping hearing last Friday but was back in the water last Saturday, the coach said, while telling bestswimming: "This week will be important in terms of reconstruction, primarily of his emotions because physically he is fine. We are not changing our plans, because physically he is in great shape, responding to training, as we saw at the Paris Open. He is taking one day at a time."