The Hindu : Sport / Olympic Games : Greek sprinters buck dope test, injured

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Saturday, Aug 14, 2004

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Sport - Olympic Games

Greek sprinters buck dope test, injured

By S. Thyagarajan

ATHENS, AUG. 13. Hours before the Opening Ceremony of the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, there was a sensational enactment of a tragedy of truly Greek proportions.

Two star athletes — Kostantinos Kenteris, the defending men's 200 metres champion and Ekaterini Thanou — had moved out of the Olympic Village, allegedly to avoid a random doping test on Thursday night. Kostantinos, who had arrived in the afternoon from Chicago, was scheduled to be ready for blood test by the IOC.

The drama began when both were permitted to leave the Village by the management of the Greek Olympic Committee. John Papadogiannakis, the manager, is being quoted as saying that the two athletes left to collect their personal belongings.

Violation of code?

It is not clear whether the action of these athletes, also said to have been involved in a motorcycle accident last night near Glyfada, south of Athens, and receiving medical attention at the KAT Hospital, constitutes a violation of the WADA Code.

A statement from the hospital said the 31-year-old Kenteris had `cranial trauma,' whiplash and open wounds on his lower leg, while Thanou sustained abdominal bruises, injuries to the right hip and a muscular injury to the right upper leg.

The two were listed in stable condition and were expected to stay for two more days. But the action of the two is perceived as a means to avoid presenting themselves to the IOC representatives.

The nature and circumstances of their act of moving out of the Village, when they should have appeared for the dope test, has raised more questions than one.

The crisis has snowballed into one of the same magnitude when Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal.

Hearing postponed

The IOC president, Jacques Rogge, was compelled to form a three-member disciplinary committee to investigate the allegations. The committee, made up of Germany's Thomas Bach, Swiss Denis Oswald and ex-pole vault Olympian Sergei Bubka, later granted a request to postpone the hearing until Monday, when the athletes might be available to attend.

"The Games are much stronger than individuals", Rogge said at a news conference. "We have had widely publicised doping cases before, they have not damaged the image of the Games".

Rogge said the IOC's medical director, Patrick Schamasch, had gone to the hospital, near the main stadium complex, to give the sprinters a written summons to attend the disciplinary hearing.

The sprinters' coach said a decision on whether they are well enough to compete will be made in the next few days. Track competition begins from August 20.

Earlier, answering questions with appreciable calm, Rogge stuck to the stand that no one should be presumed guilty when the matter was under investigation.

To a pointed question whether the Games remain sullied by such revelations, Rogge said "the Games are bigger than individuals". He pointed out that the Ben Johnson episode did nothing to affect the quality of the Games in any way.

He reiterated that detecting more cases of doping was only a success in the war launched by the IOC and WADA. If the action of the Greek athletes is viewed as a violation of WADA code, Kostas and Thanou face a two-year ban. Istvan Gyulai, Secretary-General, IAAF, said "to our mind this does not constitute a refusal".

It should be pointed out that there is an all out attack on drug cheats here, and WADA has a staff of 613 people working along with 49 doctors in labs equipped with the state-of-the-art software and equipment.

Athens shaken up

Agencies report: All of Athens was staggered by the news on Friday. Morning television and radio discussed nothing else. Opinions swung from sympathy to paranoia to stoicism.

"A Shadow is Cast Over the Big Celebration,'' a newspaper proclaimed.

The daily Ethnos urged the sprinters "Tell Us the Truth-You owe it to all Greeks to prove you are clean".

One man lamented ``a curse on us''.

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