Triathlon: Don't drink and run or your medal's at risk

By EUGENE BINGHAM

If Bevan Docherty or Hamish Carter win gold next month, don't expect to see them reach for a celebratory lager - anti-doping rules will prevent New Zealand triathletes celebrating an Olympic victory with a few beers.

Triathlon is one of several sports for which alcohol is a banned substance during competitions.

For next month's Olympics in Athens, organisers have deemed that the competition period should extend for the 16-day duration of the Games.

Even after their races, triathlon competitors would be risking a doping violation, and the stripping of medals, if they were caught with traces of alcohol in their bodies.

"Certainly it's something we'll have to watch because the last thing we'd want is somebody caught up in a drugs scandal because they had a few beers afterwards," said Triathlon New Zealand's high-performance manager, Mark Elliott.

The World Anti Doping Agency's prohibited substances list bans alcohol for 13 sports during competition, including archery, wrestling, modern pentathlon and gymnastics.

Quite why alcohol is banned is not clear, although the most likely explanation is safety.

Mr Elliott believed it was probably because of the triathlon's cycling leg, but others were not so sure.

"It's unclear as to the specific reason," the executive director of the New Zealand Sports Drug Agency, Graeme Steel, said yesterday.

It is understood that WADA officials have indicated that athletes would probably not be tested for alcohol in the days after their competition, aware that it would reflect badly on the testing system at a time of heightened public sensitivity about drugs in sport.

But, said one observer, the rules are the rules and triathletes will have to be careful.

Alcohol has been the cause of Olympic controversy before. In 1968, Swede Hans-Gunnar Liljenvall was disqualified from the modern pentathlon after failing a drugs test for alcohol despite claiming to have drunk just two beers.

It was common for pentathletes to steady their nerves with a drink before the shooting competition.