Track and field broke its Olympic record for positive drug tests Friday. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge thinks that is a good thing.
“People always ask me, `Don’t you feel these positive tests will hurt the Games?”‘ Rogge said over breakfast Friday with a small group of reporters. “I’m saying, on the contrary, each positive test is a blessing because it is eliminating a cheat and protecting the clean athletes.
“The more we find, the better our credibility and the better the credibility of sport.”
The latest doper is Russian sprinter Anton Galkin, who tested positive for the steroid stanozolol after finishing fourth in a semifinal heat of the 400 meters. He did not qualify for the final.
Galkin is the fourth track and athlete caught during postcompetition Olympic testing. The previous record was three at the 1992 Olympics.
A fifth, Hungarian hammer gold medalist Adrian Annus, could find his medal in jeopardy unless he turns up for an out-of-competition drug test.
Annus left for Hungary and announced his retirement soon after winning the hammer Sunday, according to Reuters. His in-competition test was negative, but the IOC wants him to take another test, apparently on suspicion Annus substituted another person’s urine for his sample.
“We are seeking information about his whereabouts,” IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said Friday.
Annus has the same coach as Hungarian discus thrower Robert Fazekas, who lost his gold medal for refusing to provide a urine sample. In its decision to strip Fazekas of the medal, the IOC Executive Board strongly implied he was trying to bring another person’s urine into the sampling room.
Hungarian weightlifter Zoltan Kovacs was disqualified from the 105-kilogram event for refusing to provide a sample.
Fazekas told reporters in Hungary he would appeal.
Another busted champion, shot putter Irina Korzhanenko of Russia, told the newspaper Izvestia she had no intention of returning the medal.
“I’m not going to give the gold back because I’m not guilty of anything,” she was quoted as saying. “I’m 100, 200 percent sure that I’m innocent.”
Nine athletes, including three medalists, have been found positive by IOC testing in Athens.
