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Drugs woes hit Pan Am Games High jumper tests positive; unnamed Cuban in trouble
Posted: Wednesday August 04, 1999 01:16 AM
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) -- A physician from the Cuban delegation traveled to Montreal on Tuesday to examine the urine samples of an athlete whose initial test came up positive at the Pan American Games. While rumors swirled that the athlete is four-time Pan Ams high jump champion and world record-holder Javier Sotomayor, Dr. Rodrigo Alvarez Cambra journeyed to the testing facility in Montreal, sources close to the Cuban team told The Associated Press. The sources, who asked not to be identified, would not say if Sotomayor is the athlete -- or if it is even a Cuban. But, the sources emphasized, a key medical officer of the delegation would not be sent on such an assignment if the drug test did not involve a leading Cuban athlete. After announcing that Juana Rosario Arrendel of the Dominican Republic, winner of the women's high jump, was stripped of her medal for failing a drug test, organizers also said another athlete's A test had come back positive. But no action will be taken and the name will not be released unless the B sample turns out to be positive. Asked repeatedly about Sotomayor failing a drug test, Pan American Sports Organization president Mario Vasquez Rana refused to speak specifically and would say only that the positive A test "could belong to athletics." Pan Ams organizers said Arrendel tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid stanozolol, the same substance that caused Ben Johnson to be stripped of his gold medal in the 100 meters at the 1988 Olympics. Arrendel was quoted in the Dominican Republic as denying she used stanozolol and said the test may have picked up a decongestant she used before the event. "In six years in athletics, I have never used substances to enhance my performance," she said in remarks published Tuesday in the newspaper La Informacion. Pan Ams officials also said Ray Martinez, a baseball player from Mexico, refused to take a drug test Monday after his team's loss to Canada in the bronze medal game. That was tantamount to a positive test, they said. Arrendel's It was the second drug case announced at these games. If Mexico had won the game, it would have been stripped of the bronze medal, Vasquez Rana said. "I do not take him as he were dirty or cheating," Vasquez Rana said. "He was just punished." Rosario won the high jump with a leap of 6 feet, 4 inches and had been the Dominican Republic's only gold medalist at the games so far. Argentina's Solange Witteveen, the runner-up, gets the gold. The silver goes to Brazil's Luciane Dambacher and the bronze to Canada's Nicole Forrester. In the first drug case of the games, Steve Vezina, goalkeeper for the Canadian in-line roller hockey team that beat the United States 7-6 in the title game, tested positive for stimulants and steroids. Canada was stripped of the gold, which was awarded to the United States. Sotomayor, the world record holder, won the high jump on the last day of the track and field competition. But neither Vasquez Rana nor the medical director of the games, Eduardo de Rose, would confirm that the positive A test came from the last day of that competition. Asked specifically if that test came from the final day, de Rose said, "I don't want to answer your question. I have the right to no comment." Vasquez Rana said all the track and field testing had been completed and "we have no positive results officially unless we count that from the Dominican Republican." Later, talking about the A sample, Vasquez Rana said, "There is a positive A that could belong to athletics." De Rose did say that he "never had an experience to see a B
[test] not confirm an A."
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