Sotomayor Suspended for Drugs

Javier Sotomayor, the only high jumper to clear eight feet, apparently is out of the Sydney Olympics after his suspension Tuesday for using cocaine.

Cuban authorities said they would fight the ruling by an arbitration panel of the IAAF, track and field’s world governing federation, which said Sotomayor committed a drug violation at last year’s Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, and banned him until July 31, 2001.

The suspension was termed “totally unacceptable” by the Cuban Athletics Federation, which said it would fight to have Sotomayor reinstated.

“We reaffirm once again total confidence in Sotomayor,” Humberto Rodriguez, president of the Cuban National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation, said in a prepared statement.

After the decision was announced in Monte Carlo, Sotomayor went to the institute in Havana. He left without making a statement.

The three-member IAAF panel overturned a ruling of last Aug. 6 by the Cuban Athletics Federation, that allowed Sotomayor, the world record-holder at 8 feet 1/2 inch, to continue competing in domestic and other non-sanctioned meets.

Cuban authorities insisted that Sotomayor’s urine samples had been manipulated after the high jumper tested positive for cocaine and officials stripped him of his Pan Am Games gold medal a year ago.

While awaiting the IAAF ruling, Sotomayor has been barred from competing internationally. The 1992 Olympic champion missed last year’s world championships, claiming he had a herniated disk.

In 1996, competing on an inflamed knee, Sotomayor qualified for the Olympic final round but cleared only one height and finished tied for 11th.