Banned wrestler blames protein shake

A banned Australian wrestler blames a protein shake for his positive drug test.

Greco-Roman wrestler Vinod Kumar has been expelled from Australia's Olympic team but his coach has flagged an appeal.

"He has got lawyers to fight this for him. We're going to appeal because we don't know what's going on," coach Kostya Ermakovich told the ABC at the weekend.

Kumar, an Indian-born grappler who came to Australia as a student in 2010, is yet to formally inform Wrestling Australia of an appeal.

But he has protested his innocence, telling officials a protein shake was behind his positive tests for an anabolic substance and a stimulant at Olympic qualifiers in April in Algeria.

Kumar returned positive samples to ostarine, which causes steroid-like muscle growth without side effects, and methylhexaneamine, a stimulant shown by studies to be better than testosterone for injury prevention.

Subsequent tests of his B samples were also positive and the 31-year-old has been suspended four years, the Australian Olympic Committee said last Friday.

Kumar has 30 days to appeal his ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but any hearing is unlikely before the Rio Games start on August 5.

The 31-year-old represented Australia for the first time last March, winning gold at the Oceania championships in New Zealand.

He went to Algeria the next month where he qualified for what would have been his first Olympic Games.