Hear, see, speak no evil ...

2004-08-22 16:27

Athens - Athletes of Olympics hosts Greece have shut their ears to the doping controversies surrounding their team to concentrate on the Games.

"I didn't watch television. I didn't read anything. We are all very sad and I tried not to be affected," said Anastasia Kelesidou, explaining to reporters how she shrugged off her team's mounting problems to win silver in the women's discus on Saturday.

Hosts Greece are reeling over doping scandals surrounding three of their top athletes - sprint stars Kostadinos Kenteris, Ekaterini Thanou and weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis.

Kenteris, 31, and Thanou, 29, were forced to quit the Olympics after failing to show up at a doping test on the eve of the Games' August 13 opening ceremony.

And on Sunday, the IOC stripped Sampanis, 33, of his bronze medal in the men's 62-kg category after the Greek champion tested positive for illegal levels of banned substance testosterone.

"Doping Park" is what daily newspaper Kathimerini dubbed Greece's hitherto celebrated 441-strong Olympic team on its front page on Saturday.

But Kelesidou said she had worked too hard to allow the controversy to deflect her from her target.

"I had trained hard all year for this medal. I wanted to be focus just on that to give joy to all Greeks," she said.

However, other Greek athletes said that the affair has left their nerves shredded.

"When one runs, one needs to have one's mind fully concentrated - it can't be dispersed in a thousand places," said Greek sprinter Yiorgos Theodoridis on Saturday, immediately after his disappointing performance that left him out of the second round of the men's 100-metre sprint.

Around 60% of Greeks believe Thanou and Kenteris have made use of banned substances, despite the two disgraced sprinters' assurances they are clean, said a poll of 800 people carried out by the Eleftherotypia newspaper.

Nearly 70% of respondents in the same poll said that Kenteris and Thanou had staged the motorbike accident that allegedly prevented them from returning to the Olympic athlete's village, where they had been ordered to undergo the drugs test.

Some medal winners' feelings were spoiled by the affair.

"We're both happy and sad, because of Leonidas - it's a great injustice," said weighlifter Pyrros Dimas, who won bronze on Saturday.

- AFP