The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Doping cases will not tarnish image of athletics: Sotomayor

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Thursday, Oct 25, 2007
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Doping cases will not tarnish image of athletics: Sotomayor

Principal Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Javier Sotomayor, the all-time great high jumper, said the spurt of doping cases in athletics would in no way tarnish the image of the sport.

“Doping has been there for long and those who do it will get caught some time or the other, but that does not demean the sport as such,” Sotomayor said on Wednesday when asked about U.S. sprinter Marion Jones’s revelation about her drug use prior to the Sydney Olympics.

The Cuban jumper, who retired in 2001 after winning the silver in the Sydney Olympics, is in the capital as brand ambassador for Sunday’s Vodafone Delhi Half-Marathon.

The 40-year-old himself tested positive for nandrolone in 2001 at a meet in Tenerife, Spain, but there were discrepancies in the ‘A’ and ‘B’ test results, leading to the IAAF not pursuing the case further.

Suspension

He had also served a suspension for a doping violation at the 1999 Pan-American Games, but denied using cocaine, the substance that was detected.

The IAAF reduced his two-year suspension by a year to help him compete in the Sydney Olympics on an appeal by the Cuban federation.

“More cases are coming up now because testing has become more frequent,” Sotomayor said adding that during his 17-year career he was tested about 200 times. “Athletes were using it then and have been using it now, but what is happening now is that more tests are being done,” he added.

Sotomayor, who currently manages the Cuban athletics team, said lack of good jumpers in recent times had kept his World record of 2.45 meters intact, 14 years after it was set in Salamanca, Spain. “The standards of high jump have fallen now because nobody is attacking my World record,” Sotomayor said.

“During my days, there were quite a few jumpers who could do 2.40m, so I had to go over that height to win the title,” he added. On Cuba’s falling medal count in World Championships since it won four gold medals in 1997 Athens meet, Sotomayor said the team was fatigued after participating in the Pan-American Games.

“The Osaka World Championship was soon after Pan-Am Games and some of our good athletes were injured and the focus was divided,” he said.

Sotomayor, however, said that Cuban athletes were now fully focussed on the Beijing Olympics.

About missing two Olympic Games, the 1984 Los Angeles and 1988 Seoul, Sotomayor said it was the decision of the Cuban Government to boycott the Games and nobody was above the country. “I got my due finally in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and I am happy about that,” he said.

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