EDMONTON (CP) -- An Alberta hammer-thrower suspended from Canada's Olympic team after testing positive for an anabolic steroid denies any wrongdoing and is fighting the decision.
 
 The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, which administered the drug test, confirmed Tuesday that Robin Lyons, 23, of Edmonton, tested positive for norandrosterone, a metabolite of nandrolone, at the Canadian Olympic trials in August.
 
 "I'm a victim here," she said at a news conference Tuesday. "This isn't right. I'm getting my dreams of Olympics taken away from me for something I haven't done.
 
 "I think what they're doing is a bogus test.
 
 "I'm not Ben Johnson. I'm not taking steroids."
 
 Lyons is the Canadian national champion in the hammer throw event and holds the current national record. This was her first positive drug test.
 
 Anabolic steroids enhance an athlete's performance. But Lyons insisted she has never taken a banned substance.
 
 "I've never chosen that path just because I think it takes away from your sport," Lyons said. "I'm trying to grow and be a better person. I want to do it with my own body."
 
 Athletics Canada says it was bound by policy to suspend Lyons after being notified of the test results. The organization says it will support Lyons and she attempts to be reinstated in time for the Games in Sydney, which begin Sept. 15.
 
 "It appears to be inadvertent from an over-the-counter supplement," said Athletics Canada CEO and president John Thresher. "It's a trace amount only very marginally over the standard acceptable limit.
 
 "She'll protest as soon as possible and we'll do our best to help it be fast-tracked through the CCES review board."
 
 Lyons planned to lodge a formal protest with the ethics centre Wednesday and hoped to hear back by the end of the week.
 
 "I'm hopeful that her protest will be upheld and she will have the opportunity still to compete at the Olympics if she can get these processes through in time," Thresher said.
 
 When asked if there was enough time, he said: "Barely."
 
 One of Lyons' samples showed a level of nine nanograms of norandrosterone per millilitre of urine. When a woman has over five nanograms, that is considered illegal, said Victor Lachance, CEO for the centre.
 
 Norandrosterone occurs naturally in the body but most humans would show a level of 0.5., said Lachance. The highest natural level the centre has seen in a natural test is 0.8, he said.
 
 "It's 10 times higher than what you expect to find normally and five times as to what we consider to be the highest natural level," said Lachance, who added says norandrosterone does not occur naturally in foods but can be found in nutritional supplements.
 
 "It might not be properly labelled, people may not be informed," Lachance said.
 
 Athletes submit a form when testing for banned substances. Lachance said Lyons hadn't indicated she was taking a nutritional supplement.
 
 "She indicated other things like multivitamins, but not something that would lead to this."
 
 Lyons set a meet record in women's hammer throw with a toss of 62.70 metres on Aug. 13. She and Athletics Canada were notified on Aug. 29 of her positive drug test.
 
 Lyons and her lawyer, Thomas Cooke, suggest her test result may have had something to do with her menstrual cycle, and that those are her natural levels.
 
 She said she has used nutritional products such as creatine -- a substance found in meat -- proteins and amino acids, but added these are common substances that many people take.
 
 To bolster their case, they cited an expert on drugs in sports, Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale, who says the precise amount of norandrosterone described as a "normal amount" in humans has not been officially determined by scientific study.
 
 Di Pasquale, a medical doctor, author and consultant, has said the amount of norandrosterone found in a female athlete's body fluctuates during various stages of the menstrual cycle.
 
 In a conference call Tuesday, Di Pasquale suggested the five-nanogram cutoff level is an arbitrary figure that doesn't take into account individual differences. "This isn't quite so black and white," he said.
 
  Lyons said she's been a nervous wreck since she got the news.

 
 "I got the phone call the evening before I was supposed to leave. It was very devastating," she said.
 
 "I've been training for four years. I train over 30 hours a week ... this has been my life."
 
 She said she has continued training "to keep mentally sane," and so she'll be ready if she does get to go to Sydney. If reinstated, she would start competing in preliminaries on Sept. 26. The final event is slated for Sept. 29.
 
 Canada was shamed when sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal at the 1988 Olympics for using stanozolol.
 
 Last summer at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada's roller hockey team was stripped of a gold medal when player Steve Vezina tested positive for nandrolone.
 
 In another high-profile incident, rower Silken Laumann tested positive for a banned stimulant at the 1995 Pan-Am Games, after taking an over-the-counter cold remedy.