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Busted Three more powerlifters test positive to drugs
Updated: Thursday October 26, 2000 1:36 PM
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- The drug epidemic in powerlifting is overshadowing the Sydney Paralympics, where positive doping cases escalated to nine Thursday with the announcement of three new bans. The nine drug busts in powerlifting has astonished the International Paralympic Committee's top doctor. "It's serious, it's extremely disturbing," IPC medical director Michael Riding said. He said he wasn't sure how to react to the "terrible problem" that was plaguing the sport of powerlifting. "I'm startled by this," said Riding, adding that the introduction of out-of-competition testing in Sydney had obviously caught "everybody by surprise." Powerlifters from Belarus, Iraq and Nigeria were banned Thursday for four years and expelled from the Paralympic Village after testing positive to steroids in pre-games doping tests. Six other powerlifters received the same sanction last week, also for testing positive to performance-enhancing substances in out-of-competition tests. These are the first Paralympians to return positive doping tests since Barcelona in 1992. No other sport has returned a positive doping test at the Sydney Paralympics. Paralympics organizers have identified Uladzimir Buben of Belarus, Jabar T. Jabir of Iraq and Olatumbosum Sulola of Nigeria as the latest powerlifters to fail doping tests. Buben and Sulola showed accelerated levels of testosterone in their urine samples, while Jabir tested positive for Methyltestosterone. Of the nine positive cases, seven were for steroids and two for diuretics, which can be used as masking agents for steroids. IPC president Dr. Robert Steadward said organizers "deeply regret" the doping offenses. "Never before in Paralympic history did the Paralympic movement witness such a high number of doping offenses," Steadward said in a statement. He attributed the high number of positives to the introduction of out-of-competition testing and advances in testing techniques that enables the anti-doping agencies to differentiate between natural and artificial testosterone in samples. Pol Wautermans, the head powerlifting official at the Sydney Games, said the sport had pioneered the fight against drugs, introducing doping tests 20 years ago. The high number of drug cheats came "despite hard efforts to ban doping from the sport." The first six cases were announced within four days of the Oct. 18 opening ceremony. Two Bulgarian powerlifters were among the initial positives. Others were from Romania, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Russian Marina Diakonova was the only woman banned. She tested positive to a banned diuretic. Steadward said the three latest cases were the last of 129 out-of-competition tests analyzed. He said the IPC would conduct more than 500 in-competition doping tests during the games. None had returned positive to date. Powerlifting is a version of weightlifting in which athletes lie on a bench and press weights up with their arms. Weightlifting produced four of the 11 positive drug cases during the Sept. 15-Oct. 1 Sydney Olympics. Three Bulgarians and an Armenian were stripped of weightlifting medals during the Olympics.
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