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.

Tags: anabolic steroids, Beijing Olympics, doping, Fani Halkia, Hellenic Olympic team, methyltrienolone, positive tests

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports

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.

Tags: and Katerina Thanou, Greek Olympic team, International Olympic Committee, Kostas Kenteris, methyltrienolone, sprinting, steroids, swimming, Tassos Gousis, weightlifting, Yiannis Drymonakos

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports

The International Weightlifting Federation has announced that the Greek team is allowed to compete at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. This in the light of the recent suspension of 11 members of the 14-man national team due to steroid use.

The 11 athletes tested positive for the steroid methyltrienolone during a March out-of-competition test in Athens. The results were made public in April. All the 11 unnamed athletes have been suspended for two years.

The IWF said that the country could send representatives in the sport – three men and a woman – to the Olympics in August. The decision was reached by its board.

In addition, IWF said the Greek weightlifting federation has since been fined reportedly in the amount of 250,000 euros (C$395,000).
In May, a Greek prosecutor filed misdemeanour charges against the 11 athletes, Olympic weightlifting coach Christos Iakovou and 13 others.

Iakovou, 60, is one of Greece’s most notable coaches. Through his coaching abilities, the country has won 12 Olympic medals, which include five gold. He is in suspension since the steroid scandal hit headlines.

The coach denied that he provided his athletes with the steroid, blaming a faulty batch of Chinese diet supplements.

Ten of the 11 accused athletes have supported their coach’s claim. A female athlete, on the other hand, plans to take the legal course against anyone found guilty for giving her steroids, allegedly with her in the dark.

This is not the first case wherein this steroid has figured in a doping scandal. At the height of the above steroid controversy, an English-language newspaper in Greece has reported that methyltrienolone killed 200 bodybuilders back in the 1960s. This claim, however, has been considered “preposterous” and “ludicrous” by many steroid experts.

Methlytrienolone is one of the most potent steroids around. Patrick Arnold, the now infamous BALCO chemist, has confirmed that a number of athletes used this steroid during the 1990s and dodged detection. According to Arnold, this is because methyltrienolone can provide impressive performance enhancing effects even in minute quantities.

Tags: BALCO, Beijing Olympics, Greek weightlifting team, International Weightlifting Federation, methyltrienolone, Patrick Arnold, steroid

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports