Enlarge imageBy Douglas Hamilton
ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece’s top two sprinters have quit the Olympic Games after submitting their country to six days of embarrassment in a hide-and-seek contest with anti-doping enforcers.
Greece spent a record $1 billion (640 million pounds) on security for the Games, but it had no defence against what became the messiest drugs scandal to hit the Olympic movement since Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100 metres gold medal in 1988 for using drugs.
Costas Kenteris, who took gold in the 200 metres in Sydney in 2000, and team mate Katerina Thanou, who won the silver medal in the 100 metres that year, quit the competition on Wednesday protesting their innocence but apologising to the Greek people.
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It was a moment of catharsis. For the fifth but hopefully last day in a row, Athens counted on the thrill of sporting excellence to wash away a taste of tragedy, and was rewarded.
GOLDS GALORE
Day Five saw the United States closing the medals gap with leader China, hotly pursued by Japan and Australia. More than 40 countries of the record 202 at the 17-day-long 28th Olympiad have won medals and more than 20 will take home gold.
The United States women’s relay team captured the title in the 4x200m setting a world record time of 7:53.42 ahead of China and Germany, shutting Australia out of another pool medal.
In a shut-out for the U.S., Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband won the men’s 100 metres freestyle, just beating South African Roland Schoeman from Australia’s Ian Thorpe.
Otylia Jedrzejczak won Poland’s first-ever Olympic swimming title in the women’s 200 metres butterfly.
Perhaps fittingly, the day’s first golds were minted in a $36 million dollar "washing machine" course that powers the white water canoeing run. Slovakia’s Elena Kaliska, dripping but radiant, won the women’s kayak slalom and Tony Estanguet of France took the men’s slalom gold.
An almost audible sigh of relief greeted the sprinters’ withdrawal. It cut a Gordian knot for nervous Athens organisers on the very day that the Games returned to their spiritual homeland in ancient Olympia, a cherished symbolic event.
It was here in the grove where the games were born 2,800 years ago that Ukraine’s Yuriy Bilonog won the men’s shot put gold, while in Athens his team mate Nataliya Skakun responded by winning the 63 kg Olympic weightlifting title.
Down by the beach, Tyler Hamilton whizzed by the parasols and pina coladas to prove there is more to U.S. cycling than Lance Armstrong, by racing to the time trial gold.
In women’s individual archery, Park Sung-hyun won South Korea’s sixth straight title, while weightlifter Zhang Guozheng of China triumphed in the men’s 69kg class.
Georgia’s Zurab Zviadauri added gold to his Olympic silver collection in the men’s under 90kg judo, and Japan’s Masae Ueno added the Olympic crown to a world under 70 kg judo category.
On horseback, Germany’s equestrians overtook France in the show-jumping section to top the team three-day event, then lost the medal after a video review revealed an infringement by Bettina Hoy, then got it back again on appeal an hour later.
"NEVER NOTIFIED"
The Olympics of antiquity, says Greek history, had "no place for ulterior designs or acts of unbridled individualism, and bodily prowess was expected to be balanced by nobility of soul."
The wreaths of olive leaves crowning Athens medal winners in tribute to the ancient Games are unlikely to revive that ethos.
Sprinter Kenteris, 31, said it was "with a sense of responsibility and national interest I am retiring from the Olympic Games". After days of silence he offered an explanation for the missed doping examination that triggered the debacle.
"I am adamant, I was never notified to go to the Olympic Village to take the test," he said. Yet he divulged no more about the mystery motorcycle crash that night which put him in hospital seclusion, beyond the reach of Olympic officials.
The International Olympic Committee said it would take no action and was therefore "no longer the authority responsible for issuing potential sanctions" related to the Olympics.
Instead, it said it was passing the case on to the world athletics governing body, the IAAF, "for potential sanctions".
"Justice has been served," said spectator Christos Papadopoulos, watching the shot put in the Olympian grove. "It looks like they did something wrong because there is a Greek saying that says ’a clean sky is not afraid of thunder’."
Kenteris and Thanou were only the latest of some dozen sprinters to have been laid low in the past year the scourge of modern sport at the highest levels of achievement.
"It will never stop," Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon warned in Athens last week.
Natural emotions also played havoc, as top Chinese archer He Ying lost her medal chances for taking a shot out of turn. She was penalised then missed another as her coach argued.
The Chinese archer fled in tears. Her team protested.
