Probe into sprint coach widened

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Athens - Authorities conducted a second raid on a food supplements company belonging to the man who coached two disgraced Greek sprinters in a widening investigation into their withdrawal from the Olympics after missing a doping test.

Fraud inspectors with Greece's Finance Ministry searched the offices of Christos Tsekos for six hours on Monday, seizing documents and computers from his food supplements company near central Athens.

The search of Tsekos' facilities was part of a probe into whether 2000 Olympic medalists Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou tried to avoid being tested for banned substances on the eve of the Athens Games.

Last week, inspectors from Greece's National Organisation of Medicines (EOF) raided the offices and a warehouse and confiscated some of the products distributed by Tsekos' company.

On Monday, the agency announced that small amounts of anabolic steroids were found in samples seized during the raids.

"In the warehouse, many packages were found - about 1 500 or 1 600 - which included medicines which have absolutely no permission... mostly ephedrine but also anabolic substances," EOF head Dimitris Vayionas told private television station Alter.

Also found was a small batch of medicine with steroids that came from the United States, Bulgaria and Germany, EOF said. It didn't say what kind of steroids they were.

Short-term energy burst

"There certainly is a political responsibility here," Vayionas said, referring to Greek's last Socialist government.

Ephedrine is used in weight-reducing formulas, and some athletes take it to get a short-term energy burst and to increase alertness, but it's on the list of banned substances for Olympic competitors.

Tsekos' lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said the supplements in the warehouse were legal.

Kenteris, the surprise 200m gold medallist in 2000, and Thanou, who took silver in the 100m in Sydney, could not be found at the Olympic Village for an August 12 drug test. Hours later, they were in a suspicious motorcycle accident that kept them hospitalised for four days.

The athletes denied taking banned substances, and said the accident happened because they were rushing back to the Olympic village to be tested. They later withdrew from the Olympics, and Kenteris cut ties with Tsekos.

The sprinters are not the only ones at fault in an affair that has scandalised Greeks, local media contend.

"Evidence shows that the country's athletic authorities tolerated or even covered for the hide-and-seek game by the Greek athletes with the international anti-doping officials," the Kathimerini newspaper said.