MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) has imposed a four-year ban against Russian skateboarder Maxim Kruglov for violations of anti-doping regulations, the press service of RUSADA announced on Tuesday.

The suspension term of the 30-year-old Russian skateboarder comes into force starting February 7, 2019. According to RUSADA’s press service, Kruglov was found guilty of breaching anti-doping regulations, namely an evasion, a refusal or a failure to turn up at obligatory doping-test procedures.

Kruglov is the winner of the 2011 Adrenalin Games, 2011 DC Banks Grand Opening, 2013 Simple Session and other major skateboarding tournaments.

Commenting on Kruglov’s suspension, RUSADA Deputy Director General Margarita Pakhnotskaya said in an interview with TASS that the athlete was banned since he simply did not know anti-doping regulations.

"It is worth noting that the athlete was suspended for four years not because banned substances were discovered in his doping samples," Pakhnotskaya told TASS. "According to his explanations, he consumed a certain substance not long before a test procedure."

"When he found out that he had to undergo a doping test, he got frightened that traces of that particular substance would be discovered in his urine sample and refused to undergo the doping test procedure," the RUSADA official continued.

"His ignorance of anti-doping rules let him down as the regulations state that the substance at the issue would have been considered a case of a doping abuse only if it was consumed during the in-competition period," she said. "If Kruglov appeared at that doping test procedure, no punishment would have followed."

"A RUSADA doping-control inspector in charge of that test procedure tried to convince him [Kruglov] against evading the test and told him about serious consequences that would follow after his refusal, but it was all useless," Pakhnotskaya added.

The sport of skateboarding is on the official program of Olympic competitions and will make its debut next year at the Summer Olympics in Japan.

The 2020 Summer Olympic Games will be held in the Japanese capital of Tokyo between July 24 and August 9 and will see a total of 339 sets of medals to be contested in 33 sports (50 disciplines).