Fani Halkia, Greece’s former 400m hurdles Olympic champion, has been handed over a ban of two years for her positive dope test at the Beijing Games, according to an announcement by the Greek athletics federation.

The athletics federation confirmed the decision made by its judicial committee for awarding a punishment to the former star.

From Foxsports.com.au:

A gold medallist at Athens in 2004 Halkia was expelled from the Beijing Olympics after testing positive for the banned steroid Methyltrienolone.

Halkia, her coach and two other athletes who failed tests also face maximum sentences of five years in prison in Greece over their respective cases.

The four suspects deny any wrongdoing and Halkia claims she was the victim of sabotage.

The same drug had previously been found in the samples of over a dozen Greek athletes in other disciplines, severely embarrassing Greek authorities in the run-up to Beijing 2008.

The International Olympic Committee hired legal representation in Greece and sued coach of Halkia for bringing damage to its reputation.

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A Court Official has remarked that suspended Greece Coach Christos Iacovou has been accused by former Olympic weightlifter Christos Konstantinidis of giving banned substances to athletes.

Konstantinidis represented Greece at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and was offering evidence to a judicial investigation that was established to look into a doping scandal in which 11 out the 14-member national weightlifting team tested positive for methyltrienolone, the anabolic steroid.

From Foxsports.com.au:

He told prosecutor Andreas Karaflos that Iacovou, who has been suspended by the Greek Weightlifting Federation pending the outcome of the case, had pressed him to take banned substances in 1997.

“The former athlete told the prosecutor that Iacovou had urged him to take banned substances and that when he refused he found himself off the national team,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Konstantinidis made identical claims in 1997 but was then forced to sign an apology for fear of losing his job with the police.

The court official said Konstantinidis told the prosecutor that despite signing the apology 11 years ago, he had never retracted his comments.

“He stood by what he had said in 1997 and he repeated those claims today again,” the official said.

Nikos Kourtidis, one of the three weightlifters who didn’t test positive, was of the view that Iacovou would not have given steroids to his athletes.

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The International Olympic Committee officials are not happy with the Greek Olympic Committee’s decision to let Greek Olympic hurdler, Fani Halkia, carry the torch during the torch relay through Greece.

Halkia was banned two years ago due to a positive test for an anabolic steroid, metribolone, at the Beijing Olympics. Metribolone is also known as methyltrienolone or R1881. It is a derivative of trenbolone and is a potent anabolic steroid. Metribolone, however, has a high potential for hepatotoxicity.

Halkia however, won a gold medal in Athens, so Greek Olympic officials considered her as one of the torchbearers for the Olympic torch relay. She won a gold medal in the women’s 400m hurdles in Athens. She set an Olympic record of 52.77 seconds during the semifinals.

During the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing on August last year, Halkia was announced to have tested positive for metribolone. She denied using such substance and requested a B sample to be tested the next day. Her B sample also yielded the same results. On December 12, 2008, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) finally announced that she would be banned from participating in any competition for two years.

From Deadspin:

The Vancouver games are only starting the torch relay, and we’ve already got a doping controversy. Oh, Olympics, how we’ve missed you.

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This year is Olympic year so it’s more interesting than the previous years as far as doping is concerned.

Remember the canny seven Russian track and field athletes who resorted to urine swapping to pass drug tests?

The International Association of the Athletics Federation officials became suspicious when said women athletes were always present for unannounced random tests. The Russians were also very punctual, arriving at testing places even before the IAAF officials got there.

“There were no ‘no shows’,” one official told Reuters. “The Russians were always there.”

So the officials started storing the athletes’ samples. Further investigation revealed that the latest urine samples provided by the athletes did not match the DNA of the stored samples. The Russians were later suspended. The athletes include Tatyana Tomashova, the two-time world 1,500 meters champion; and Yelena Soboleva, the world indoor 1,500 meters champion.

And who wouldn’t remember the Greek athletes who figured prominently in this year’s doping list because of quite a handful of failed dope tests.

In March, eleven of the 14 members of the Greek weightlifting team tested positive for the steroid methyltrienolone in out-of-competition testing in Athens. Then there was champion hurdler Fani Halkia, sprinter Dimitris Regas, and Anastasios Gousis who got banned for testing positive also for methyltrienolone. All Greek athletes were suspended for doping.

In Tour de France four riders, including the third finisher Bernhard Kohl, were suspended for testing positive for CERA, the new generation variant of the blood-boosting drug EPO

There was Marion Jones’ sprint in and out of jail for her use of performance-enhancing drugs and her involvement in a check fraud case. Jones began her six-month jail term March and was released September 5.

The NFL’s diuretic case also was in the news which involved several athletes who blamed the StarCaps weight-loss pill for their failed dope tests. Pat Williams and Kevin Williams of the Vikings were among the players who tested positive for the masking agent bumetanide.

The Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds anabolic steroids cases also dominated the sports scene in 2008 and are expected to remain in the headlines in 2009. The much-awaited Barry Bonds trial will commence March next year

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A big “OOOPS” from the anti-doping officials.

The 300 or so test results, which had initially been reported missing by a team of independent observers during their recent visit in Beijing, have been traced by the International Olympic Committee. All tested negative for prohibited compounds.

According to the AP report, the team of 10 observers had been tasked by the World Anti-Doping Agency to review the Beijing Olympics drug-testing program.  The missing test results had been included in the team’s final report to WADA.

“Once the laboratory had apparently delivered all reports to the IO (independent observer) team, it transpired that around 300 test results were missing in comparison to the doping control forms,” the WADA report said.

“Regarding the ‘300 missing tests,’ it is our understanding that there has been a communication problem between the Beijing laboratory and the IO team on the results of a number of tests,” IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said in an e-mail. “The results of these tests were communicated to the IOC by the end of August. All were negative. The results have now been transmitted to the IO team.”

Apparently, the team conferred with the IOC’s medical commission regarding said results’ status, but IOC was unable to finish processing of the lab results in time for the group’s completion of their final report last month.

The procedural lapse had put the credibility of the anti-doping program in the Beijing Olympics. Additionally, the team reported another significant loophole in IOC’s control doping process at the Beijing Olympics.  It was found out that 102 of the 205 participating countries failed to provide sports officials with whereabouts information regarding their athletes. Such information is needed to implement pre-Games and out-of-competition testing.

It was not all negative points for the IOC however. The WADA group gave their thumbs up to the increased number of overall tests (4,770), blood tests (969) and tests for EPO (817) and human growth hormone (471). The 2008 Olympics implemented the largest drug-testing program in the history of the Olympics.

Six athletes were thrown out for doping violations during the Olympics, and three other cases are still pending.

The most controversial case of doping at Beijing has been Fani Halkia, the Greek hurdler who won the gold at the at the women’s 400m hurdles at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. On August 16 at the Beijing Olympics, Halkia tested positive for the anabolic steroidss methytrienolone.

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Greek track athletes Anastasios “Tassos” Gousis and Fani Halkia had presented a case against unnamed individuals who were allegedly responsible for the two athletes’ failed steroid tests.

Gousis told a prosecutor last week that he was unaware that he was given performance-enhancing drugs. He was supposed to compete at the 200 meter-event in Beijing Summer Olympics, but was sent home from a pre-Olympic training camp in Japan because he tested positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone (also known as M3) in his A-sample on August 8. The test was conducted by the Greek anti-doping agency.

“Gousis said he didn’t know anything about the supplements he was taking and that no athlete would put his career at risk days before the Olympics,” a court official, who refused to be named, told Reuters.

The 29-year-old sprinter stated that their lives (his and Halkia’s) were put in danger by those individuals who administered the drugs without their knowledge, according top court officials.

Halkia also tested for M3 August 16 during the Beijing Olympics. The Greek hurdler initially denied the she has taken any illicit compounds and requested that her B-sample be tested. The next day her B-sample also tested positive.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has filed a lawsuit against Halkia’s coach, George Panagiotopoulos, who presented himself before prosecutor last week and said she had never deliberately taken performance-enhancing steroids.

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From AFP:

Over a dozen Greek athletes who failed doping tests prior to and during last month’s Beijing Olympics thought a rare anabolic steroid would help them elude tests, a leading anti-doping expert said Monday.

But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had been on the lookout for cheats from Greece ever since the drug, methyltrienolone, turned up in the results of 11 Greek weightlifters in April, Don Catlin, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s committee for science and medicine, told Ta Nea daily.

“The Greek case…involved the use of a particularly rare and dangerous anabolic whose use had not been officially recorded before,” Catlin said.

“Whoever marketed it in Greece undoubtedly argued that it is not harmful and could not be traced, as only small quantities are needed for it to act.”

The doping outbreak in the country’s Olympic team already resulted in a judicial inquiry in Greece. It also urged its parliament to enact tougher anti-doping legislation.

Under the new regulations, reward cuts for athletes and harsher penalties against those guilty of supplying banned substances and corrupt anti-doping and sports officials will be imposed.

Fifteen Greek athletes have tested positive for methyltrienolone before and during the Beijing Olympics. Out of the 15 athletes, eleven were from the weightlifting team who tested positive for M3 in an out-of-competition screening in March this year.

The most prominent of these controversial athletes is Fani Halkia, who won the silver in hurdling in Beijing. She was later disqualified and stripped of that medal.

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We all know how great Greeks are in diverse fields – philosophy, literature, science and arts, to name just a few.  And because of the Greek diaspora, it has been said that many civilizations across the globe had developed because of the influence of the Greeks.

But these days, however, the Greeks have been losing their distinction especially in the world of sports. This is being witnessed in the ongoing Olympics – which is another Greek’s contribution to the world – as members of the Greek team continue to decrease because of use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. The latest ‘casualty’ is runner Fani Halkia, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone. AP reports.

A Greek TV station says Fani Halkia, who won gold in the women’s 400 meters hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics, has tested positive for a banned substance.

Skai TV also said Saturday that Halkia has already left the Olympic village.

Another Greek station, Mega Channel, also said an athlete had tested positive for the banned steroid methyltrienolone. But it did not name the athlete.

Halkia was tested a few days before the Beijing Olympics in Japan, where Greece’s track and field team had been training.

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It took so long for the International Olympic Committee to realize that organized doping is the reason why the Greek athletes are now being considered as endangered species. The Greek Olympic team’s ranks continue to diminish as the Summer Games in Beijing push on because their athletes have been found out to be using the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone.

Really, it doesn’t take a genius to arrive at the conclusion that there exists a systematic doping within the Greek team. You’ve got 15 athletes, all from one team, and all testing positive for one banned substance – that’s in-your-face-doping.

Excerpts from the AP report.

Organized doping is likely behind a recent spate of positive drug tests in Greek sports, the president of the country’s Olympic Committee said Monday.

“There are 15 people, all with the same substance. This is the strangest thing, because it leads to the conclusion that there is an organized effort,” Minos Kyriakou told The Associated Press.

The athletes — 11 weightlifters, three runners and a swimmer — all tested positive for methyltrienolone, a banned steroid.

“There is an organized crime — because that is what this is called,” Kyriakou said. “Because it seems there is a lot of money hidden there, a lot of profit.”

The Hellenic Olympic Committee president stopped short of making a direct accusation as to who could be behind a system of doping, but said the state must crack down on the practice.
In the latest embarrassment for Greece, reigning women’s 400-meter hurdles champion Fani Halkia was sent home from Beijing on Sunday, hours before her scheduled heats, after testing positive for methyltrienolone. Her test was conducted by the World Anti-Doping Agency at a Greek team training camp in Japan on Aug. 10.

The scandal broke in Beijing on Sunday, the day that Greece won its first three medals — silver in men’s rowing and a bronze each in women’s sailing and women’s triple-jump.
Halkia denied any wrongdoing, telling Greek reporters in Beijing she was “shocked” that she had tested positive.

But Kyriakou had harsh words about the athlete.

“I don’t talk about dead people,” he said. “Whoever does such things, gets mixed up in such things, commits suicide. And when someone wants to commit suicide, nobody can stop them.”
The 11 weightlifters, who not been named publicly, tested positive for methyltrienolone months before the Olympics, and the steroid was also found in tests on swimmer Yannis Drymonakos, 400-meter runner Dimitrios Regas and sprinter Tassos Gousis.
“Of course it has to be organized, when there are so many cases with the same substance,” Kyriakou said.

The HOC president said the problem of doping was likely to be widespread.

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There is a forced exodus of Greek athletes from the 2008 Olympics because of their alleged use of steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

The latest list of athletes who have been banned from participating in the ongoing Summer games in Beijing include Tassos Gousis, Kostas Kenteris, and Katerina Thanou.

The incident involving Gousis broke on the day of the opening ceremony of Olympics in Beijing. Gousis was expected to run in the 200-meter event before he was recalled after testing positive for a banned compound, according to Greek sports officials. The officials did not immediately name the athlete since only the first of his two samples has tested positive.

“We have been informed that there is a positive result involving one of our athletes,” Segas chairman Vassilis Sevastis told AFP. “The athlete will be recalled and suspended pending tests on the second sample,” he added, without giving further details.

The Greek media, however, identified the athlete as Gousis who later told reporters that he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.

“I am innocent and my conscience is clear”, Gousis said. “It would be stupid for me to take a banned substance just before the Games,” he added.

The media has reported that Gousis has tested positive for the banned compound methyltrienolone.

In anti-doping testing, both samples should test positive for steroids before a doping violation is declared. Both samples are taken from a single batch provided by the athlete at the control and are identified as A sample and B sample. Anti-doping organizations do not determine guilt until the positive A sample has been confirmed by the B sample.

A statement issued by the Hellenic Olympic Committee said that the athlete had been tested by the Eskan, the Greek anti-doping council. The Greek Olympic team has undergone scheduled check prior its entry into the Olympic Village.

“There will be further statements after the test results are finalized,” the HOC said. HOC officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou was disallowed to join in the Summer Games by the International Olympic Committee on Sunday. The IOC imposed the ban because of Thanou’s involvement in a drug-testing scandal that took place four years ago at the Athens Games.

According to the IOC spokesperson Giselle Davies, the IOC’s executive board decided to bar the female sprinter after its disciplinary panel looked into Thanou’s selection for the 100 meter-event for the Greek team.

The three-man panel convened on Thursday to deliberate the case and then provided recommendations to the executive board on Sunday. The board agreed with the panel’s findings which rendered Thanou ineligible to compete in Beijing because she violated rule 23.2.1 of the Olympic Charter. The rule pertains to withdrawal of accreditation among other disqualification grounds.

Before her exclusion from the Games, Thanou was scheduled to participate at the 100-meter heats scheduled for August 16.

Thanou, along with fellow sprinter Kostas Kenteris, reportedly missed doping tests on the eve of the opening ceremony of the Athens Games. The pair claimed they missed the testing because they were injured in a motorcycle accident and were hospitalized because of the accident. An official Greek investigation, however, found out that it had been staged. Both athletes eventually withdrew from the Games and returned their Olympic accreditations.

They were not immediately sanctioned by the IOC but they were subsequently penalized with a two-year suspension by the International Association of Athletics Federation, the world governing body for athletics.

In 2007, Thanou returned to the track and was selected to join in the Greek team.
Thanou won the silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics in the same event where the controversial Marion Jones had won the gold. Since Jones was stripped of that medal (along with the four others she had won in Sydney) due to steroid use, Thanuo could be awarded the gold. However, because Thanuo’s career is also tainted with doping allegations the IOC is yet to take any decisive action on the matter.

In March 2008, eleven out of 14 members of the weightlifting team were tested positive for the anabolic steroids methytrienolone. This is also the same banned compound that allegedly nailed Tassos Gousis (as mentioned above) and swimmer Yiannis Drymonakos. Drymonakos is currently the European 200-meter butterfly champion.

Greece’s hope for victories in swimming dwindles with the Drymonako’s failed doping test. Aside from winning the 200-meter butterfly at the European championships in Eindhoven in March and setting a new European record there, Drymonakos also won the silver in the 400-meter medley at the same meet.

A month later, he won a bronze medal in the 400m individual medley at the world short-course championship in Manchester.

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