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Italy's Fiacconi may miss Games
Posted: Thursday May 18, 2000 08:28 PM
ROME (AP) -- Italy's Franca Fiacconi, the 1998 New York City Marathon winner, has refused repeated requests to take blood tests and risks being excluded from Italy's team at the Sydney Olympics, an Italian athletics federation spokesman said Thursday. In January, Italian officials omitted Fiacconi from a preliminary list of Sydney participants after she failed to report for a blood test before defending her New York title in November, said the spokesman, Marco Sicari. The Italian marathon team for Sydney is due to be announced next week, but the Rome-based sports daily Corriere dello Sport reported Thursday that officials had already selected Ornella Ferrara, Maria Guida and 1998 European bronze medallist Maura Viceconte. In Prague, where she will defend her Prague Marathon title Sunday, Fiacconi said she was "surprised" by news of her exclusion. In the wake of scandals involving the hormone EPO, the Italian National Olympic Committee, CONI, in May 1999 began requiring potential Olympic competitors to take blood tests. Athletes who refuse are ineligible. EPO, which is associated with higher levels of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, can't be detected by the usual antidoping tests administered after competitions.
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