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CJ alleges doping cover-up
09/12/2003 15:50 - (SA)
Los Angeles, California - Former world shot putt champion C.J. Hunter has accused the head of international athletics of offering to cover up his positive steroid test if he feigned an injury and withdrew from the 2000 Olympics.
Hunter told the San Jose Mercury News the IAAF wanted to avoid a major scandal just before the Sydney Games and the body's general secretary Istvan Gyulai made the offer before a meeting in Brussels on August 25, 2000.
Sandro Giovannelli, the IAAF competition director, also attended the meeting, which the News said Gyulai acknowledged last week had taken place, but denied he tried to hide a positive test.
At the time, Hunter was married to sprint star Marion Jones, whose pursuit of five gold medals made her the big story entering the Games. She won five medals, three of them gold.
Hunter said he was told to compete in the Brussels meet despite the drug test and then "say you got an injury and you can't compete in the Olympics".
Hunter's allegation comes in the midst of one of the biggest sports drug scandals since Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for a banned steroid at the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
A September police raid of a San Francisco nutrition company headed by Victor Conte Jr., who came to Hunter's defence in the 2000 drug case, has led to a federal grand jury investigation that has included athletes from baseball, football and Olympic sports.
Tested positive
Officials have linked a new steroid, THG, to Conte's lab. Five track athletes and four American football players from Oakland Raiders have tested positive for the drug.
Speaking publicly for the first time in three years, Hunter, 34, said the IAAF officials asked him not to challenge the positive test for nandrolone - a banned steroid that he denies taking.
"Don't say anything and we will make sure everything is fine so you can come back next year," he said they told him.
Hunter, from North Carolina, said he agreed to Gyulai's proposal because he had a knee injury and wanted to "do something for the greater good".
Hunter, the 1999 world champion who had qualified for the US Olympic team, underwent knee surgery and withdrew a week before the Sydney Games but went to Australia as Jones' coach. He officially retired in 2001.
The meeting in Belgium came a day after the IAAF notified US Track and Field of Hunter's positive test. But Gyulai said Hunter misinterpreted the intentions.
"There was no back-room deal at all. There was a possibility to keep the confidentiality until after the Olympic Games - if he accepted that he could not compete," Gyulai said.
- AFP
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