World champion kayaker Nathan Baggaley said he felt vindicated despite a decision to ban him for 15 months for the use of performance enhancing steroids.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Tuesday night found the dual Olympic silver medallist guilty after testing positive to stanozolol and methandienone in an out of competition test in September.

But the 29-year-old Baggaley told the hearing the banned substances had entered his system unbeknown to him via a glass of orange juice.

The Court accepted Baggaley's claim and downgraded his punishment from two years to 15 months.

"It's been a long couple of months and to be honest the main thing for me is that I wanted to keep my credibility and to have the judge acknowledge that I wasn't a cheat, that I wasn't knowingly taking prohibited substances," Baggaley said after the hearing.

"I obliviously still got a sanction but it has been diminished so it's not the full two years so I acknowledge ... that it was a silly mistake, I'll live by it now.

"But the best thing is that I feel I've cleared my name."

All of Baggaley's previous results, including his silver medals in both the K1 and the K2 500m events at the Athens Olympics last year will stand.

The 15-month punishment also means it will not severely impact his Beijing 2008 campaign as he will only miss one season of competition.

"I've been saying for years I'd like a break and I've had ten years on the Australian team and so a break is overdue," Baggaley said.

"I would have liked to have done it on my turns but maybe at the end of the day I'm going to make this a blessing in disguise, I'm going to have a good break.

"Trust me the fire is more alive than ever."

A spokesperson for CAS said the body would not release a statement on the matter until the full judgment was handed down in January.

That left Baggaley and his team to talk up the finding.The three time world-champion in the K1 500m event had told the hearing he'd drunk orange juice contaminated with stanozolol and metandienone but said others were involved.

He admitted this was "freakish"."It was kind of a combination of things and it does unfortunately involve others and I don't want to involve them at this stage other than to give the outcome that for me tonight has been a relief," he said.

Baggaley added he accepted CAS's decision to still hand down a ban.

"At the end of the day knowing I'm not a cheat," he said."I'd like to get nothing but the fact is they take a very firm stance against drugs and drugs in sport," he said.

"And I do have to acknowledge and I'd expect anyone who does cheat to get a firm penalty so I guess I've got to cop something on the chin and I was partially responsible for the position I was put in."

His legal team said they would wait until the full judgement was handed down before deciding if any appeal would be launched.

Surf Life Saving Australia chief executive Greg Nance said it was unlikely his organisation would appeal the decision saying he thought 15 months was fair due to the "mitigating" circumstances.

"For Surf Life Saving, Nathan is one of our elite athletes, he's been an exceptional athlete in surf life saving for many years and he's also an Olympian," Nance said.

"I think he has to reflect now on what has happened, it's in the public domain and he has to deal with that."

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