Random tests reveal positive drug results

Sydney: Random tests by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over the past few months have turned up several positive results, US drugs chief Barry McCaffrey said on Friday.

Speaking only hours before the opening ceremony for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, McCaffrey told reporters WADA had tested 2,040 athletes from a variety of sports.

"The thousands of tests have yielded positives that will be informed to the international federations," McCaffrey told reporters. "There will be an announcement within the next two days."

At a news conference earlier, McCaffrey, who has been critical of the IOC's commitment to fighting doping, acclaimed the Sydney Games as a turning point in the fight against drugs.

"I think there is a really changed environment," he said. "These are the most drug-tested Games in history. We have had some athletes leaving Sydney, we have had some athletes not coming to Sydney."

McCaffrey's announcement came as Romania withdrew former Olympic medallist weightlifter Traean Ciharean after he tested positive for a banned substance.

"I'm afraid it's true. He tested positive and the national committee decided to withdraw him," Romanian National Olympic Committee spokesman Alex Epuran said.

Ciharean, who won bronze in the 52 kg weight class at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, was to have competed in the 56 kg category here.

He was still in Sydney on Friday but was expected to leave the Olympic village soon. McCaffrey was asked whether he thought the two tests for EPO (erythropoietin), a drug used by distance runners and swimmers to enhance the blood's capacity to carry oxygen, were adequate. The tests have been introduced for the first time at the Games.

"No," he replied. "But it's remarkable we have a test that is legally sustainable."

McCaffrey was speaking after a WADA executive board meeting, also attended by the Munich Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter who is now in charge of the US anti-doping programme.

Shorter, a long-term opponent of doping in sport, said he had been encouraged by WADA's efforts since it was established at a special International Olympic Committee (IOC) doping meeting last year.

Asked when had first become aware of the drugs problem in athletics, Shorter laughed and said his eyes had been opened on his first overseas trip as an athlete to France in 1969.

He said he had been sharing a room at the Grand Hotel with a hammer thrower who had carried drugs and syringes into France in his suitcase.

"He went into a drugs rage," Shorter said. "He died in his 40's."

Baumann hearing begins

The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) arbitration panel finally began its hearing into the doping case of Germany's 1992 Olympic 5,000 metres champion Dieter Baumann on Friday after a day's delay.

The hearing was adjourned for 24 hours on Thursday to allow Baumann to attend in person but when he failed to turn up on Friday, the panel decided to proceed without him. Baumann has been training at the German team camp in Queensland.

Baumann, 35, was cleared by the German federation after testing positive for nandrolone last year but the IAAF council did not accept his contention that somebody had spiked his toothpaste and referred the case to arbitration.

IAAF spokesman Giorgio Reineri said the hearing would resume on Saturday with an announcement not expected until a council meeting on Tuesday.

Reineri said the case of serial drugs offender Aleksandr Bagach had been referred to the council by the federation's doping committee with a recommendation that it also go to arbitration.

The 33-year-old shot putter, who won the bronze medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games, tested positive for the male sex hormone testosterone at the European Cup in 1989. Three years ago, he was stripped of the gold medal at the Athens world championships after a positive test for the stimulant ephedrine and this year he was cleared by his national federation after massive amount of anabolic steroids were detected in his urine.

The council invariably accepts its doping committee's recommendation and Bagach will then be automatically suspended. With arbitration panels taking several weeks to meet, he seems certain to miss the shot put qualifying and final on the opening day of the athletics programme next Friday.



(c) Reuters Limited.