Greek Sprinters Get Delay

At their request, Greek sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou got another delay Monday from an International Olympic Committee panel inquiring into doping tests the pair allegedly missed last week.

The IOC disciplinary commission granted a request from their lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, to put a hearing off until Wednesday.

Francois Carrard, an IOC legal advisor and the organization’s former director general, said the IOC had been assured that Kenteris and Thanou would appear Wednesday.

They have been hospitalized since Friday, reportedly with cuts and bruises suffered in a motorcycle accident only hours after the missed test.

The Greek Olympic Committee has withdrawn the pair from the 2004 Games, as well as their coach, pending a final decision by the IOC.

Athens’ chief prosecutor told police to get statements from the sprinters, Associated Press reported, adding that officers were looking for evidence of the accident.

The IOC inquiry centers on the circumstances underlying attempts by authorities to find Kenteris and Thanou for a doping test last Thursday.

The issue, Carrard emphasized, is whether the test was missed -- and whether other tests have been missed.

Under IOC rules, two no-shows can lead to a suspension.

*

A female weightlifter from the Asian nation of Myanmar, formerly Burma, was stripped of a fourth-place finish and expelled from the Games, the IOC saying she had tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid.

Nan Aye Khine, 27, tested positive last Thursday, the IOC said, two days before placing fourth in the 48-kilogram class.

She told officials she had “taken a herbal remedy on a regular basis, the content of which had not been examined by a doctor,” the IOC said.

Khine is the second athlete to test positive for a banned substance here.

Kenyan boxer David Munyasia tested positive Aug. 6 for a banned stimulant and also was sent home.

-- Alan Abrahamson

*

Players from teams with extra first-round games in the women’s soccer tournament will not be suspended from the quarterfinals if they receive a second yellow card in the final game of the first round.

The United States is one of four teams in Group G that plays an extra game.