Romanian Competes After Drug Scandal
S Y D N E Y, Australia, Sept. 18 -- Four “clean” members ofRomania’s shamed weightlifting team were reinstated at theOlympics today after a bizarre day of confusion over policytowards the scourge of drugs in the sport.
After hours in which the fate of the weightlifters swungback and forth erratically, the International Olympic Committee(IOC) accepted a loophole in the sport’s rules allowing Romaniato pay a fine to cancel out a blanket ban.
This meant that, while two male weightlifters who faileddrugs tests remained barred, the squad’s remaining four memberswere freed to compete in the Games.
Within hours one of them — Marioara Munteanu — took partin the women’s 53 kg event. She finished eighth.
Fine Paid
The Romanians had been suspended Sunday under the InternationalWeightlifting Federation’s “three strikes and out” rule whichsanctions any team recording three positive tests in a calendaryear. In addition to the pair who tested positive in Sydney,another lifter failed a test earlier in the year.
But team officials said the country’s Olympic committee hadpaid the IWF a $50,000 fine to keep their four “clean” lifters— Munteanu and three men — in the competition.
“Yes,” head coach Niku Vlad said. “We paid it [the fine]because it was not fair that the other athletes should gohome.”
The IOC had said earlier that all the Romanian lifterswould have to leave the Games.
But the IOC’s stand-in boss, vice-president Dick Pound,said later it would not be intervening in the case, saying theeligibility of competitors was the responsibility of therelevant international sports federation.
Baumann Suspension Upheld
Meanwhile, track officials upheld the two-year suspension offormer Olympic 5,000-meter champion Dieter Baumann of Germany.
Baumann, who tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolonelast Oct. 19 and Nov. 12, had appealed, arguing that he was thevictim of a plot when traces of the drug were found in toothpastehe supposedly used.
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