Baxter ready for medal bid to end drug scandal

Published on Sunday 19 February 2006 00:09

SCOTTISH skier Alain Baxter will this week attempt to banish the controversy which has dogged him since he was stripped of his Winter Olympic medal four years ago.

Baxter will compete in the slalom skiing competition in Turin this Saturday and is expected to pull out of other events in an effort to focus on his strongest discipline.

The race is being seen as his last chance to get an Olympic medal after he lost his bronze at Salt Lake City for failing a drugs test. Baxter tested positive for the banned substance methamphetamine when a nanogram of the chemical was detected in his urine sample.

He was stripped of his bronze medal and disqualified from the race.

This Saturday will see him take to the slopes of Sestriere near Turin to compete for the men's slalom race.

In advance of the games he insisted that he has a good chance of winning a medal and reminded observers of the unpredictable nature of the Winter Olympic Games in which the likely favourites often come unstuck and surprise challengers come through.

He said: "There is no reason why I can't win a medal in Turin. You can never tell. You've got your rock-solid favourites in Giorgio Rocca [of Italy] and Benjamin Raich [of Austria] but anything can happen in a race and especially in the slalom."

The slalom is his strongest event and in an effort to focus his energies on the contest he told his mother he would opt out of tomorrow's giant slalom, even though he has already qualified.

His mother, Sue Dickson, who will be watching him at Saturday's event, said: "He wants to carry on training and doesn't want to risk injury. And he doesn't want to compete as an also-ran in a competition he doesn't expect to win."

His former manager, John Clark, said: "This is his last chance and he knows that. This only comes around every four years and this is his big chance to put the debacle of Salt Lake behind him."

"Alain's done well to handle the pressure as well as he's done."