Bobsleigh champs reject cheating claim
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-02-21 06:45

CESANA PARIOL, Italy: Germany's Andre Lange and Kevin Kuske rejected allegations that they were cheating after powering to victory in the two-man Olympic bobsleigh title on Sunday.

Lange and Kuske timed 3:43.38 sec to win by 0.21 sec from Pierre Lueders and Jamaican-born Lascelles Brown, who celebrated their Olympic silver just weeks after gaining Canadian citizenship.

Swiss pair Martin Annen and Beat Hefti timed Sunday's fastest run of 56.34 sec in heavy snow and claimed their second successive Olympic bronze.

But competition was clouded by the fears of several teams that Germany gained an unfair edge by using illegally treated sled runners, which are harder and quicker than those on most bobsleighs.

Coaches of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Russia and Latvia were expected to meet after the race to decide whether to take any action.

However, Lange insisted the German sled was within the rules and said he had stopped listening to all the "fuss".

"There were many checks on the material and they found that the materials were 100 percent okay," said Lange.

"The bobsleigh was built in Berlin, it undergoes very stringent controls and all the controls have found out that it is okay, that the measurements are okay and that the materials are okay.

"Of course people make a big fuss over everything but after a certain point I stop listening to them."

Lueders, one of the Germans' leading accusers, preferred not to comment on the issue.

"Right now the race is over and we have another race to focus on," Lueders said.

The allegations centre on a treatment of the steel runners known as plasma immersion technology, which is banned by the International Bobsleigh Federation (FIBT).