Greek tragedy in Athens

2004-08-21 16:53

Athens - The Athens Olympics have turned from party to tragedy for hosts Greece after doping scandals involving three of their top athletes.

Greece's national heroes, Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, were forced to withdraw from the Olympics for having failed to show up at a doping test.

Two days later, Greek Olympic officials confirmed that one of their athletes, later identified by his coach as weightlifting bronze medallist Leonidas Sampanis, had tested positive for a banned substance.

Could be 1st to have medal withdrawn

Greece, the birthplace and hosts of the Games, stand to be the first nation to see one of their medals withdrawn as Sampanis' second sample was also positive, according to a Greek official close to the team and media reports.

Sampanis' medal was Greece's first in these Olympics, a Monday feat hailed as relief to the nation's soul after the embarrassing Kenteris-Thanou affair.

That affair took an even nastier turn Thursday when a magistrate's ongoing enquiry concluded that the two athletes most probably faked a motorbike accident to escape the test.

"It's a heavy blow. We brought the Games to Greece to purify them and now the press is full of doping scandals of our athletes," said Vassilis Papageorgopoulos, a popular sprinter in the 1970s hailed as Greece's "flying doctor" who is now mayor of Salonika, Greece's second-biggest city.

"Doping Park" is what daily newspaper Kathimerini dubbed the Greek Olympic team on its front page hours after Greek team chief Yiannis Papadoyiannakis offered his resignation, which was not accepted by the Greek Olympic Committee.

Papadoyiannakis had headed Greece's 441 athletes as they marched into the main Olympic stadium under passionate cheers from the home crowd in the Games' August 13 opening ceremony.

"There is a definitely an ill-feeling which we are trying to overcome... what comes first now is to preserve calmness in the team," Papadoyiannakis told reporters Saturday after a first IOC hearing into the Sampanis case.

Greece has invested heavily into sports champions in the run-up to the Games. Government officials had vehemently defended them, particularly Kenteris and Thanou, against doping suspicions raised in recent years.

But officials have now changed their tune.

"We will find out the truth," Greek government spokesperson Theodoros Roussopoulos pledged.

Olympic champions

"Every certified doping case in the Greek Olympic team will be severely sanctioned," a high-ranking government source said.

Greek athletes finishing in the top eight in any Olympic Games' competition are considered as "Olympic champions" by officials and rewarded with perks such as secure jobs in Greek security forces or licences to run petrol stations and betting shops.

Greek Education Ministry officials told the press on Saturday that doping tests will be extended down to school level.

- SAPA