Inquiry of Greek Runners Opens

Track’s governing body began investigating Thursday whether two Greek sprinters who withdrew from the Athens Olympics had tried repeatedly to avoid doping testers.

While the International Assn. of Athletics Federations investigates, Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou are free to participate in competitions.

The two national sports heroes who won medals at the Sydney Olympics have denied wrongdoing. And their lawyer, Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, said of the latest probe: “We have nothing to fear.”

Under IAAF rules, athletes face sanctions in the event of three drug-test no-shows in 18 months. Before the missed test in Athens, the Greek runners were absent when testers looked for them in Chicago on Aug. 10-11. The IAAF is also looking into a third possible case involving Kenteris in Tel Aviv in late July.

The IAAF’s doping inquiry board will gather all information about the case. If there is sufficient evidence of missed tests, the case will go the Greek athletics federation, Segas, which will conduct a hearing. IAAF can reject a finding by the federation.

“It will take weeks, but hopefully not months,” said IAAF spokesman Nick Davies.

Prosecutors are also investigating whether Kenteris and Thanou were deliberately trying to avoid drug tests, as well as the circumstances surrounding a suspicious motorcycle accident on the eve of the Games.

Kenteris, the surprise 200-meter gold medalist in 2000, and Thanou, who took silver in the 100 meters in Sydney, could not be found at the Olympic village for an Aug. 12 drug test. Hours later, they said they were involved in a motorcycle accident that happened because they were rushing back to the Olympic village to be tested. They spent several days in the hospital with cuts and bruises, and later withdrew from the Olympics.

“All information obtained by Greek authorities will be looked at,” Davies said.

As part of the government probe, fraud inspectors with Greece’s Finance Ministry searched the offices of the sprinters’ coach, Christos Tsekos, for six hours Monday, seizing documents and computers from his food supplements company in Athens.

Last week, inspectors from Greece’s National Organization of Medicines raided the offices and a warehouse, and confiscated some items that they said contained small amounts of anabolic steroids.

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Under suspicion of doping, Olympic hammer throw champion Adrian Annus of Hungary retired rather than deal with what he called a campaign to manipulate test results against him.

“I’m putting an end to my career,” Annus, 31, told the state-run news agency MTI in a statement. “It isn’t worth going through all this even for an Olympic champion’s title.”

International Olympic Committee officials told Associated Press that Annus passed a drug test after winning the hammer throw Sunday, but doping control officials have been trying to track him down since then for further testing.

The IOC wants to find out whether he provided his own urine for the test or whether he tried to beat the screening system as teammate and discus gold medalist Robert Fazekas allegedly did, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Fazekas lost his gold medal after Olympic authorities said he failed to provide enough urine for a drug test, a charge he disputes.

Regardless of his retirement, Annus remains under the jurisdiction of IOC doping rules through the end of the Games on Sunday. If found guilty of a doping offense by then, he would also lose his medal.

Annus accused World Anti-Doping Agency officials of starting a campaign against him after they allegedly received an anonymous letter from Hungary naming athletes suspected of taking drugs.

“What guarantee is there that if I give another sample it will produce a result that matches reality?” Annus said. “I’m not going to allow them to manipulate the sample.”