Athletics: EPO row deals major image blow

By MIKE ROWBOTTOM

It is three days until the women's 5000m heats at the world championships get under way early on Friday (NZT) in the Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Canada.

As that time draws closer, members of the International Association of Athletics Federations may fancy they hear a ticking sound.

These championships face having a large hole blown in their image following the shamefaced announcement by the head of the IAAF's doping commission, Arne Ljungqvist, that Olga Yegorova of Russia had had to be restored to the competition because of a technical error in the testing procedure that indicated she had taken the banned blood-booster EPO last month.

The emergence of the news that the French laboratory handling Yegorova's test had failed to take the blood sample legally required to confirm the positive finding discovered within her urine sample left IAAF officials and athletes aghast.

Now the question on everybody's mind is whether Romania's Olympic 5000m champion, Gabriela Szabo, will stand by her threat to boycott the event if the Russian, whose adverse sample showed up from the Paris Golden League meeting on July 6, was allowed to take part.

Szabo was besieged by reporters seeking a reaction to the news of Yegorova's reinstatement after she had won her 1500m heat on Sunday, but she refused to make any comment.

Her manager, Jos Hermens, said that she had not reached a decision over the 5000m, but he hinted that he would try to dissuade her from taking any radical action.

"I think her career is too short to be stopped by this, but it's her decision," he said.

"At this moment it doesn't make a lot of sense to boycott because you help Yegorova to get a medal."

Hermens later issued a statement deploring Yegorova's restoration, which came about because the Paris laboratory dealing with her test neglected to take the blood sample required to corroborate the far more elaborate urine test which indicated she had taken EPO.

As of the end of this month, a change in the International Olympic Committee rules will allow the urine test which has been developed by the Paris lab to stand on its own as an indicator. But as Ljungqvist admitted, there was no possibility of retrospective action being taken against Yegorova based on the Paris test.

"It took 10 years to find a test for EPO and now they have it and it is messed up," Hermens said. "Now they say it will be clarified in two weeks after the championships. Why can't they have clarified it two weeks before? It doesn't give confidence in the system.

"The EPO test has been used by cycling, it's been verified by the UCI [International Cycling Union] but not by the IAAF and the IOC. Why not?

"We accept the fact that Yegorova has been reinstated on a technicality - that's the rules of the sport.

"But this is not nandrolone, which it can be argued gets into the body through supplements. EPO can only get into the body through injections or whatever."

Meanwhile, England's Paula Radcliffe, who also spoke out strongly against Yegorova's presence at the world champs, has to consider whether to see through her promise to consider taking part in some kind of sit-down protest should the Russian's suspension be lifted.

Radcliffe made her position very clear before the championships began after spotting Yegorova in the athletes' restaurant.

"When somebody has cheated you and beaten you in two races this year, to see them flaunting it in your face, still thinking they are going to compete in the championships, is wrong," she said.

Radcliffe will not make any further comment on the matter until after her 10,000m final today, after which she will make a decision on whether to double up over 5000m.

Yegorova, meanwhile, has defended her right to line up in these championships.

Asked if she had ever taken EPO, she replied: "Of course not."

Asked to describe what she was feeling about the situation, she responded: "After a scandal like this, how do you think a normal person would feel? What can I do about it?

"Seriously, it hasn't been proven that I took EPO, so that should be the end of it. I can't explain it myself. I was shocked when I heard about it."

- INDEPENDENT