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Tuesday, September 12
Official: Ruling sends wrong message
Reuters
SYDNEY, Australia -- International Olympic Committee
vice president Dick
Pound on Tuesday criticized the reduction of a ban on Cuban
high jumper Javier Sotomayor, who tested positive for cocaine.
The world record holder has been cleared to compete at the
Sydney Olympics after he had a two-year ban cut in half by the
governing body of athletics.
Sotomayor, who tested positive at last year's Pan-American
Games in Winnipeg, Canada, denied taking the recreational
stimulant. He was cleared by his national federation.
But Pound, who heads the IOC's new drug-testing agency,
said: "It does seem to me something that is rather off-message
in the anti-doping field.
"This is not just a steroid. This is a drug that is a
serious problem in society in general."
The International Amateur Athletic Federation ruling council decided on humanitarian grounds to reinstate
Sotomayor, the finest high jumper in the history of
the sport.
Sotomayor, 32, says he plans to clear his name after the
Olympics.
Pound, speaking after a meeting of the IOC's session ahead
of Friday's start to the Sydney Games, made it clear that he
was giving his personal opinion rather than the stance of the
IOC's world anti-doping agency.
But he said: "I think many people were surprised -- and you
can include me in that number -- about the reduction of the
sentence.
"There was no serious effort, or if there was an effort it
was unsuccessful, to establish that the test was wrong. So it
was a positive test and there ought to have been a sanction
that applied."
He added: "Why the IAAF in its discretion chose to reduce
that I don't know. ... There may be factors of which I am not
aware."
Sotomayor is immensely popular in Cuba and is viewed by
President Fidel Castro's government as a hero of its socialist
sports system.
At a patriotic ceremony in Havana last month in honor of
Cuba's full Olympic squad, the high jumper received a prolonged
standing ovation from a crowd which included Castro.
Castro has personally defended Sotomayor, calling him one
of the "glories" of the nation who became the victim of bungled
laboratory techniques and a probable plot by anti-Communist
foes abroad.
Pound said he had not talked to the IAAF about the case.
"They are the ones who determine what the eligibility is,"
he said. "If he was under suspension then he would not be
allowed in. He's not, so he's in.
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