Doping shoves sport down the agenda again

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Sydney: Doping thrust sport sharply down the Olympic agenda again on Tuesday as US shot putter C J Hunter and a petite Romanian gymnast about a third his size grabbed the headlines for the wrong reasons.

Hunter, husband of track star Marion Jones, tested positive for nandrolone four times in June and July, IOC Medical Commission chief Alexandre de Merode disclosed.

Earlier, gymnast Andreea Raducan, who will be 17 on Saturday, was stripped of her all-round gold medal after testing positive for pseudo-ephedrine contained in Nurofen pills she took as a cold cure.

Raducan became the fifth athlete to test positive for drugs in competition at the Games. The others were three Bulgarian weightlifters, all medallists, and a Latvian rower.

Tests on Hunter included the positive after the Bislett Games in late July announced on Monday when de Merode had said the concentration of the drug was 1,000 times above the limit.

Hunter, who withdrew from the Olympics before they started, citing a knee injury, told reporters on Tuesday, "There were three out of competition tests in addition to the Oslo test and they were nearly all the same level and nearly the same result."

It was not immediately clear whether Hunter remained accredited to the Games as his wife on Wednesday resumes her bid to win five golds.

Raducan, however, is being allowed to keep the team gold and silver collected earlier in the gymnastics competition.

Pseudo-ephedrine is banned by the IOC though not by gymnastics federations, prompting Romania Olympic Committee president Ion Tiriac to say, "We believe that this case is completely irrelevant."

Team doctor expelledHowever, the Romanian team doctor, held to be responsible for giving Raducan the over-the-counter cold cure, has been expelled and suspended from the next Games in 2004.

Jacques Rogge, a member of the IOC medical commission, expressed some sympathy for Raducan but said they had had to act out of fairness to her rivals.

He told Reuters, "Removing the medal is a matter of justice for the other athletes. In a way she's innocent, but she had a competitive advantage because of the drug and this distorted the competition."

It was all a cold shower after the euphoria in the athletics stadium on Monday night when nine golds were awarded, including, most movingly, to Australia's very own Cathy Freeman.

She draped the Australian and Aboriginal flags round her as she went on a lap of honour.

Six years ago when she did the same thing at the Commonwealth Games in Canada, she was rebuked by Games chief Arthur Tunstall.

On Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister John Howard described her gesture as "terrific."

Her win unleashed a tide of Australian emotion, eclipsing a devastating 400 metres win by American star Michael Johnson that cemented his reputation as one of the greats of all time.

In other athletics action, Romanian Gabriela Szabo won the 5,000 metres, Mozambique's Maria Mutola took the 800 and Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie retained his 10,000 metres title after the tightest of finishes with Kenyan Paul Tergat.

The latest medals table showed the United States with 23 golds, ahead of China (21) and Russia (14).

A rest day in track and field on Tuesday spelt more modest fare. The women's cycling road race provided the best of the early action with Dutchwoman Leontien Zijlaard taking gold in an exciting finish. It was her second gold of the Games following her victory in last week's individual pursuit.



(c) Reuters Limited.