Topic: News: Entire Bulgarian team banned for doping

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Entire Bulgaria team banned for year over drugs
09/22/2000
 
Bulgaria’s entire weightlifting team was banned from the Sydney Olympics today after two more of its medal-winners were disqualified for doping in another scandal for the country and the sport.

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) applied the sanction under its “three strikes and out rule”. “The Bulgarian weightlifting team is suspended forthwith for a period of not less than 12 months pending further investigations,” the IWF said in a statement issued after a meeting of its executive board.

Sam Coffa, the IWF vice-president, said the Bulgarians had brought “darkness to us on a world stage”. “It’s time for us to get tough and if we have to be bastards we have to be bastards,” Coffa, an Australian, told reporters.

Diuretics can be used by athletes to decrease weight before competition or to mask the presence of other banned substances. Furosemide is a relatively primitive diuretic. “When athletes use a product that is well known, it is a bit stupid,” said International Olympic Committee medical commission chairman Prince Alexandre de Merode.

Izabela Dragneva, gold medal-winner in the women’s 48 kg category, and men’s 62 kg bronze medal-winner Sevdalin Minchev were stripped of their medals and kicked out of the Games after positive tests for the banned diuretic furosemide. On Wednesday, men’s 56kg silver medal-winner Ivan Ivanov met the same fate after also testing positive for furosemide.

Dragneva, 29, became the first gold medal winner in Sydney to be branded a drugs cheat. Silver medal-winner Tara Nott of the United States was awarded Dragneva’s gold and Raema Lisa Rumbewas of Indonesia the silver. Indonesia’s Sri Indriyani moved up to bronze. Minchev’s bronze went to fourth-placed Gennady Oleshchuk of Belarus.

Nott, from Kansas, said she was “kind of in shock” after learning she had moved up to gold. “I would obviously want to win the gold on the platform but it’s good to know that those who cheat are getting caught. “It will mean that some day we will have a level playing field and myself and the others will be able to win on the platform rather than after a drug test,” Nott said.

IWF rules allow a federation to escape suspension by paying a $50,000 fine, as Romania did this week to stay at the Games. But Bulgarian National Committee chief Ivan Slavkov said his country would not do the same. “We did not offer to pay the $50,000,” he said.

Slavkov said the disgraced lifters had taken a Bulgarian product which was not on the banned list. His committee would submit evidence to the IWF to try to clear their names, he added.

Weightlifting almost lost its status as an Olympic sport after five doping cases at the 1988 Seoul Games, two involving Bulgarian gold medal-winners who had also taken furosemide. Bulgaria withdrew its team from those Olympics. Six doping cases involving weightlifters have already hit the Sydney Games - the three Bulgarian medal-winners plus two Romanians and one Taiwanese lifter who all failed pre-Olympic tests.