Olga Pyleva won the silver medal earlier this week in the 15-kilometer event. AP

CESANA, Italy (AP) -- Russian biathlete Olga Pyleva was thrown out of the Olympics and stripped of her silver medal Thursday for failing a drug test, the first athlete caught for doping at the Turin Games.

Pyleva, who won silver at the 15km event Monday, was scratched just before the start of Thursday's 7.5km sprint, in which she was considered a leading medal contender. She also won gold and bronze medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

A hastily convened, three-member IOC panel found Pyleva guilty of a doping violation. She had tested positive for the banned stimulant carphedon in a urine test following Monday's race.

"It's a shocking situation because I've always been against using banned medications," Pyleva told Russia's state-run First Channel.

Dr. Nikolai Durmanov, head of the Russian Anti-Doping Committee, said a doctor who treated her in her Siberian hometown of Krasnoyarsk for an ankle injury in January gave her an over-the-counter medication that did not list carphedon as one of its ingredients.

"This was 100 percent the physician's mistake," Durmanov said.

Martina Glagow of Germany, who finished with bronze, will be awarded the silver. Albina Akhatova, Pyleva's Russian teammate, goes from fourth to bronze.

Akhatova reacted with shock and disbelief.

"I cannot say that I am happy because it is not a good medal for me," Akhatova told the European sports cable channel Eurosport. "I am not glad, of course. I think that this is terrible, firstly for Olga, because she is not feeling so well, for the girls in our team, and of course for the coach."

Further possible sanctions -- such as a long-term ban from competition -- are up to the International Biathlon Union.

Pyleva told the First Channel that she had trusted her doctor.

"What's happened now is just monstrous stupidity," she said.

Under the IOC's rules, athletes testing positive at the Olympics are considered guilty if a banned substance is found in their systems, regardless of the circumstances.

Durmanov said he met with Pyleva, 30, after the failed test. Asked how she was feeling, he added: "It is better not to talk about it. She is in a very bad condition."

He said no appeal was planned at this time.

"It's a catastrophe for us. We are not going to start some special process, no appeals so far," Durmanov said. "The main point of our concern is our athletes, because she is innocent and she is in a catastrophe. Her brilliant career has been finished in such a dramatic way without her being guilty."

Pyleva was tested twice by the World Anti-Doping Agency in January, he said.

"We spent some time together. I must say that she had no idea about this doping," he said. "She used this product openly. She thought it was a vitamin. It's an accident."

Alexander Tikhanov, head of the Russian Biathlon Union, has taken part of the blame, but Durmanov said he shared it, too.

"The typical Russian way of doing things is immediately find somebody to blame. This case is much more complicated. I can blame myself," Durmanov said.

"We have brought a lot of extra new equipment in our lab, we have published a lot of books, leaflets, brochures for our athletes, for medicine workers, but finally it didn't work. So it's my responsibility too. In this very case, I can share responsibility with Mr. Tikhanov," Durmanov said.

The IOC has conducted 380 tests since the athletes' village opened Jan. 31; Pyleva is the first to be caught by the IOC's most rigorous doping control program ever at a Winter Olympics. A total of 1,200 samples are being tested, a 72 percent increase over the number in Salt Lake City, where there were seven doping cases total.

A Brazilian bobsledder who tested positive for steroids in a pre-Olympic drug test was the first athlete sent home from the Turin Games for doping. Armando dos Santos, a former hammer thrower, failed the test in early January when a sample showed evidence of the steroid nandrolone.

A dozen cross-country skiers were suspended five days for elevated hemoglobin, considered health checks -- though they can also indicate possible blood doping. Seven of those have since been retested and cleared to compete; one failed a retest, and the other four had not yet been cleared.