Drugs, missing athletes cloud closing days of Games

MELBOURNE - Drugs and absconding athletes have clouded the closing days of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, with two Indian weightlifters testing positive and as many as 13 competitors lost, missing or on the run.

Official confirmation that the two Indians had returned positive samples in tests taken before the Games began was finally given yesterday, amid growing concern at the time taken to announce results and a blanket refusal by the Commonwealth Games Federation throughout the 12-day event to lift its cone of silence.

The time lapse prompted Federation president Michael Fennell to admit that he was not comfortable at the delay and to promise a review of testing and disclosure procedures after the Games.

Games chairman Ron Walker added: "There must be a better way of doing this".

The federation refused to identify the two weightlifters, but they were widely reported to be Tejinder Singh, who withdrew from the men's 85kg division on Monday, and Edwin Raju, fourth placegetter in the men's 56kg division.

Indian women's weightlifting medal contender Shailaja Pujari was dropped from the national team before the Games after testing positive to the banned steroid stanozonol, Nigeria was banned from international weightlifting for 12 months, and Australian authorities last week announced an investigation into drugs in the sport.

Games officials promised the most robust drug testing regime ever in Melbourne, with hundreds taken before they began and more than 1000 during the competition - one athlete in four.

But federation chief executive Mike Hooper had until yesterday refused to release any results - even to say no positive tests had been returned - or to make any comment on the basis that as offending athletes could not be named until the end of a long process, all athletes would come under a cloud.

The decision has come under heavy criticism and suspicion that the federation was covering up drug cheats until after the Games were over.

But Hooper said there had been no other positives returned among the more than 700 tests carried out so far, and defended the time it had taken to confirm that stanozonol had been detected in the two Indians, and to publicly release the information.

The federation had been told of the results on March 18 by the National Medical Institute in Sydney, the Federation Court told the athletes the following day of their provisional suspension from the Games, with testing of a second sample taking a further two days.

The positive results were returned to the federation yesterday afternoon.

A final decision was expected to be announced on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Victorian police continue to search for a growing number of athletes missing from the Games Village, with the Sierra Leone team confirming yesterday that another four of its members had joined the seven who had previously vanished - half the impoverished nations Games squad.

Police have also been looking for a Tanzanian and a Bangladeshi athlete who went earlier went missing. Neither took clothing, money or passports.

Chief Victorian Police Commissioner Christine Nixon said there were fears for their safety, although police were yesterday pursuing new leads.

So far none of the missing athletes has broken the law, because the special Games visas under which they entered Australia do not expire until April 26.

They are free to travel as they wish until then.

But there is widespread belief that some, if not all, of the Sierra Leone athletes have no intention of returning to a homeland scarred by a decade of brutal civil war and which is among the poorest countries in the world.

ABC radio reported yesterday that some of the missing athletes had told team officials they would try to stay in Australia.