Drugs in sport: Olympic athletes face ban

A Bulgarian triple jumper and a Russian hurdler yesterday became the first athletes to be caught using steroids at the Atlanta Olympic Games and face four-year bans.

The International Olympic Committee said Iva Prandzheva and Natalya Shekodanova tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs. The International Olympic Committee director general, Francois Carrard, said Prandzheva, fourth in the women's triple jump, tested positive for metadienone and had been disqualified.

Prandzheva was a silver medallist at the 1995 world outdoor and indoor championships and gold medallist at the European indoor championships earlier this year.

Prince Alexandre de Merode, chairman of the IOC medical commission, said Shekodanova tested positive for stanozolol. De Merode said the analysis of Shekodanova's second sample had still to be confirmed but if positive, her seventh-place finish in the women's 100 metres hurdles will be thrown out.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport expanded upon their decision to reinstate four Russian competitors who had used bromantan: "It was not proven that bromantan is a stimulant to a standard sufficient to justify a sanction as severe as the withdrawal of medals from the athletes. Accordingly, they granted the athletes the benefit of the doubt."

Nick Gillingham, the British swimmer who stands to lose a bronze medal as a result of this decision, spoke of taking the matter to court. "I am very bitter and very, very sad that it has happened in the last race of my career," he said. "In some ways, I guess you could say I am pleased to be retiring at this stage if this is what the sport is coming to."