Golden rule
IOC set to discuss U.S. bid for medal upgrade
Posted: Friday November 20, 1998 01:03 PM
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Four American swimmers beaten by
East Germans at the 1976 Olympics are likely to have a request
for their silver medals to be upgraded to gold discussed by the
IOC next month.
The request comes in the light of doping revelations in the
former Communist German state.
IOC director general Francois Carrard confirmed on Friday a
letter had been received and said: "I think that there will be
a preliminary discussion."
The letter, signed by U.S. Olympic Committee president Bill
Hybl, will come before an IOC executive board meeting being held
in Lausanne from December 11 to 14.
The letter deals with the U.S. women's 4x100 meters medley
relay squad of Linda Jezek, Lauri Siering, Camille Wright and
Shirley Babashoff who finished second, 6.6 seconds behind the
East Germans, at the 1976 Montreal Games.
However, a successful appeal would be likely to encourage
more and the IOC alrerady has a similar request over British
swimmer Sharron Davies.
The IOC has always resisted the idea of applying retroactive
legislation and reopening cases from the distant past.
The concept of rewriting sporting history by withdrawing
medals for performances achieved decades ago is fraught with
legal problems. East German athletes, for instance, are not the
only ones to have been found guilty of doping offences.
There have also been suggestions that a time limit, possibly
one of four years, from one Olympics to the next, might be
applied.
Two trials in Berlin this year, however, have highlighted
the doping abuse which fuelled East German dominance in women's
swimming from the inaugural world championships in 1973 to the
downfall of the Communist state in 1989.
East Germany won 11 of 13 women's swimming titles at both
the 1976 and 1980 Olympics and 10 out of 15 at the 1988 Seoul
Olympics, having joined the Soviet Bloc boycott of the 1984 Los
Angeles Games.
Britain's Davies, who finished second behind East German
Petra Schneider in the 400 meters individual medley at the 1980
Moscow Olympics, is among those who want the IOC to review the
record.
Schneider, whose 400 individual medley world record stood
for an astonishing 15 years and was broken only last year, has
conceded she unknowingly took hormone drugs and has had constant
health problems since she retired from the sport in 1984.
She made the admission in a British television program
screened this week in which she was dramatically brought face to
face with Davies, for the first time since 1980, at her hometown
of Chemnitz, known as Karl-Marx-Stadt under the old regime.
The trials of former East German swimming coaches and
doctors have provoked extraordinary testimony from past
champions.
Christiane Knacke-Sommer, the first woman to swim the 100
meters butterfly in under a minute, recounted the side-effects
of a routine of taking pills and receiving injections before
international competitions.
"When, at 15 or 16 years old, you suddenly have a deep
voice, need to shave your legs and look fattened up then
naturally you talk to one another about it," she told a Berlin
court in April at the trial of four coaches and two doctors
accused of causing bodily harm by giving female swimmers
performance-enhancing steroids between 1975 and 1989.
Carola Beraktschjan told the same court in June she wanted
to forfeit her medals and have her name removed from the record
books because anabolic steroids had boosted her performances.
"I don't think my athletic performance alone, without the
help of pharmaceuticals, would have allowed me to earn a spot
among the world's top swimmers," said Beraktschjan, who under
her maiden name of Nitschke set a world 100 meters breaststroke
record in 1976 at the age of 14.
At the two trials, five officials have been convicted and
fined and five have paid fines to have charges dropped. The
verdict in the case of one remaining defendant is expected next
month.
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