Drug Issue Addressed

International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch warned Sunday in Atlanta that use of performance-enhancing drugs causes “physical and moral death.”

In a speech at the opening ceremony of the 105th IOC session, Samaranch said the Olympic movement would continue to lead the fight against doping.

“Doping is the negation of sport and its role as we understand it,” he said. “Athletes who use banned substances to improve their performance commit a series of acts that transgress and violate certain immutable principles.”

There have been a total of 51 positive tests at the Olympic Games since doping controls were introduced in 1968. At the last summer games in Barcelona in 1992, five athletes failed drug tests.

Coincidentally, three athletes were kicked off the Iranian Olympic team Sunday for using steroids as the rest of the team departed for Atlanta.

The Farsi-language Jomhuri Islami daily said Mohammad-Reza Tolouie and Abbas Abdi were dropped from the judo team and Shaheen Nasiriniya was pulled off the weightlifting team after the trio tested positive for steroids.

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About two dozen members of Kenya’s 47-person team jeopardized their participation in the Olympics by bypassing a 10-day training session at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg to participate in European Grand Prix meets. Those meets were arranged by the athletes’ agents, without clearance from Kenyan officials.

“We should unite as a team and work together,” said Kip Keino, vice president of Kenya’s Olympic committee.

Keino said Kenyan Olympic officials would have to meet in Atlanta and make final decisions on who will participate.

Among those who never arrived in Hattiesburg were three-time world 3,000-meter steeplechase champion Moses Kiptanui, Olympic 3,000-meter steeplechase champion Matthew Birir, and Olympic 800-meter champion William Tanui.