Banned Romanians back in fray after paying fine

Sydney: Four members of Romania's weightlifting team have been allowed to compete at the Sydney Olympics after payment of a fine to cancel out a blanket ban imposed after doping offences, team officials said on Monday.

Asked if the Romanians were competing, head coach Niku Vlad said, "Yes. We paid it (the fine) because it was not fair that the other athletes should go home."

The announcement was a surprise since the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had said earlier in the day that all the lifters would have to leave the Games. IOC medical chief Patrick Schamasch said a fine could never replace a doping sanction.

The Romanians had been suspended under a "three strikes and out" rule by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) after three of their lifters tested positive within a year.

The country's National Olympic Committee has now paid the IWF a $ 50,000 fine to keep their four "clean" lifters - three men and a woman, Marioara Munteanu - in the competition, team officials said.

The IWF had announced on Sunday that all six Romanian weightlifters sent to Sydney would be kicked out following positive drug tests on two of them on the eve of the Games.

That decision was in line with IWF rules that a national federation would be suspended from international competition for 12 months if three of its members tested positive within a calendar year. A first Romanian lifter tested positive earlier this year.

Barely an hour after the IWF announced her reprieve, Munteanu lined up with the other entrants for the women's 53 kg competition. Earlier in the day Schamasch had told a news conference that, as far as the IOC was concerned, the matter was closed and all the athletes had to leave the Village because of the suspension.

"A fine never has to replace a suspension or a sanction. A fine may be applied but never is it the substitute of a sporting sanction," he said.IOC director general Francois Carrard later backed Schamasch's line but he stressed that eligibility was a matter for the international federations.

"We always follow the decision of the international federation unless there is something extraordinary to reconsider it," he said.



(c) Reuters Limited.