Smith, part of the victorious men’s K4 team at London 2012, will now not be able to compete at Rio 2016, though he was widely-expected to miss out on selection anyway.

His ban, which has been backdated, clearing him to return to competition on September 8 next year, does not change his status as an Olympic gold medallist and team-mates Dave Smith, Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear are also unaffected.

The 33-year-old, winner of an individual bronze medal at the World Championships in Duisburg, Germany in 2013, had originally claimed the reason the samples he gave at the training camp in  July 2014 tested positive for Stanzolol, an anabolic steroid, was because they had somehow become contaminated.

He argued that the substance had entered his system either through drinking local water or through the water penetrating his skin.

Smith launched an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but they dismissed his claims, opting to ban Smith for a period of two years, backdated to September 8 last year, the date on which his provisional suspension from competition began.

“The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) today welcomed the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to impose a two-year sporting ban on Olympic gold medallist, Tate Smith for two presence violations and one use violation of the prohibited substance 3’-hydroxystanozolol glucuronide (a metabolite of Stanozolol),” a statement from ASADA read.

“Mr Smith’s argument before the CAS rested on the probability that Stanozolol was in the water where he trained and that it in some way entered his system either through drinking local water, contamination of his sample, or that it penetrated the skin while training.

“In its deliberations, the CAS noted three other training colleagues were tested at the same time and place as Mr Smith and these samples returned no adverse analytical findings.”