Athletics: Medallists not among drug cheats

SEVERAL athletes who competed in this year's world championships in Paris have tested positive for the new designer steroid THG, an IAAF spokesman confirmed yesterday.

However authorities are relieved that tests for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) are unlikely to expose any medal winners as drugs cheats.

Re-testing on 400 urine samples taken during the Paris championships is not yet complete but with about 75 percent of the results now in, “a very small number” had tested positive for tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG, according to IAAF spokesman Nick Davies.

But sources said the positive tests which had so far been exposed did not include medal winners.

A source close to the Berlin meeting said four to five athletes were concerned so far and the number could raise once the results of all the tests are known.

The precise number of positive tests will be announced today but no names will be given.

The athletes had either already been tested positive or belonged to a group linked with the BALCO lab, the source added.

Several leading track athletes and baseball players, among them triple Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones and her partner Tim Montgomery, the world 100 metres world record holder, have already testified before a grand jury investigating BALCO.

Five athletes, including European 100 metres champion Dwain Chambers of Britain, have tested positive for THG.

The other four have not been officially confirmed but the growing scandal clearly threatens the credibility of the showcase Olympic sport.

“No one can deny that this THG scandal is something new, something terrible,” IAAF president Lamine Diack said.

“It is a conspiracy of cheating which probably also involves organised crime. The IAAF must show strong leadership now and fight back with every available means to protect the integrity and perhaps the future of our sport.”

Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said this week that he wanted the U.S. to be turned into a “sports pariah” unless it took the issue more seriously.

A top US Olympic official responded yesterday by assuring the IOC his country was committed to the fight against drugs.