SYDNEY - Kylie Palmer has withdrawn from Australia's team for next month's world championships in Russia after a positive drug test, Swimming Australia announced yesterday.

The 25-year-old, a Beijing Olympics relay gold medallist in 2008 and a Commonwealth Games champion, has accepted a provisional suspension after testing positive for a banned drug almost two years ago.

Swimming's world governing body Fina only told Palmer in April about the failed test at the 2013 world championships in Barcelona. Palmer said in a statement she had been trying to investigate how the positive test arose but it was "a task that is almost impossible given the extraordinary passage of time".

Recent testing on a B sample provided by her on July 31, 2013 also tested positive to a minute trace of an unnamed prohibited substance.

World anti-doping body Wada stepped in after reviewing cases from the 2013 world championships and told Fina to investigate.

Under confidentiality rules set out in the Fina Doping Control regulations, Swimming Australia could not provide details on the matter at an earlier time.

Palmer now faces a Fina doping tribunal at which she hopes to clear her name.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE