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Sydney Notebook
Posted: Monday May 01, 2000 07:10 PM
Rulebreakers must repay fundsATLANTA (CNNSI.com) -- Australian Olympians who test positive for performance enhancing drugs will be forced to repay all public funding received for training in the build up for the Sydney 2000 Games. The Australian Olympic Committee has ordered all potential Olympians to sign contracts containing the tough anti-doping clause. AOC secretary-general Craig McLatchey said any athlete who had not signed the pledge would not be selected for the Olympics. More than 1,000 of the 1,200 potential Olympic competitors have already signed the contracts. The remainder, mostly foreign-based athletes, were expected to sign soon.
Scientist chargedA scientist at Sydney's top Olympic training center, the New South Wales Academy of Sport, has been suspended after being charged with illegally importing steroids ordered over the Internet. Australian customs officials said the man had been summonsed to appear in a Sydney court on May 9 after they intercepted a package containing the body-building substances dehyroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and androstenedione. Both drugs are illegal in Australia and included on the International Olympic Committee's list of banned substances but are freely available over the counter in the U.S.
Final venue unveiledOlympics Minister Michael Knight on Thursday unveiled the Olympic waterpolo venue at Ryde, the final permanent sporting venue built for the Sept. 15-Oct. 1 Games. Knight dedicated the pool to the Australian women's waterpolo team, saying the players 'led the struggle' to have women's waterpolo included in the Olympics and created the need for a specific waterpolo venue. The other permanent sporting venues were completed last year but Knight, who is president of the Sydney organizing committee, said the Ryde facility was held up because the venue was not included on Sydney's bid document. SOCOG had planned to host men's waterpolo at the International Aquatic Center at Homebush, the main Olympic precinct.
Tickets for saleThe final major release of 2.4 million tickets for the Sydney 2000 Olympics will go on sale May 7, Games organizers SOCOG have announced. The bulk of tickets would be available via mail-order forms in Australia's News Limited newspaper network but tickets for high demand events would be available through telephone call centers. Athletics tickets would go on sale first with tickets for other sports released on a day by day basis over 28 days, said SOCOG deputy chief executive Michael Eyers.
Food policy reversedSydney Olympics organizers have succumbed to public pressure and dropped proposed rules which banned spectators from taking food into Olympic venues. Olympic Coordination Authority director general David Richmond said he had met with Olympics Minister and SOCOG president Michael Knight in a bid to clarify the proposed bans. Richmond said the bans had been devised to control the amount of food taken into Olympic venues in a bid to reduce crowd congestion and help with waste management. The proposed bans sparked outrage in Australia earlier this week when anti-discrimination commissioner Chris Puplick described them as a commercial rip-off. Puplick said it was unlawful to force ticketholders to purchase food and beverages only from official caterers and sponsors including fast-food giant McDonald's and Coca-Cola.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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