Greek sprinters must wait another week

Published on Thursday 21 October 2004 02:59

GREEK prosecutors have delayed announcing their findings into whether the country’s top sprinters faked a road accident in a doping scandal that rocked the Athens Olympics.

Chief Prosecutor Dimitris Papangelopoulos is now expected to decide whether to press charges against the pair and their coach later in the week instead of yesterday as had been thought.

On Tuesday, headlines rang out with news that attackers had stabbed and beaten sports editor Filippos Sirigos, a key witness in the investigation into Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou.

Police also said gas canisters and a bottle of petrol were sent to the owner of Sirigos’s newspaper, Eleftherotypia, in what local media saw as the worst intimidation case against Greek journalists for years.

Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis condemned the attack, echoing warnings by Greek officials during the Athens Olympics in August that the scandal could tarnish Greece’s image in the world.

Kenteris, surprise winner of the 200 metres gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and Thanou, the 100 metres silver medallist in Sydney, were national heroes but fell from grace as the saga unfolded.

The sprinters said they had a motorcycle crash hours after missing drug tests on 12 August. They then stayed in hospital for four days.

Media reports suggested Kenteris and Thanou had staged the accident, and there were significant discrepancies between the hospital doctors’ initial diagnosis and the report of a medical examiner who checked the athletes during their hospital stay.

Both athletes pulled out of the Games, but denied taking banned drugs and asked for the forgiveness and support of the Greek people. The controversy is widely regarded as the biggest Olympic drugs scandal since the 1988 disqualification of 100 metres champion Ben Johnson in Seoul.

If prosecutors decide to press charges and the two sprinters are found guilty of faking the accident, they would face only light jail sentences because the issues are regarded as misdemeanours.

A judge could also pass suspended sentences or order the pair to pay fines to avoid going to prison.