Controversial sagas become standard Games feature
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-02-25 17:08

The scandal again went on for days before the judge was finally ejected from the Games and subsequently banned from the sport.

Officials awarded duplicate golds to Sale and Pelletier and set about rewriting the scoring system in a bid to prevent future scandals.

Less than two years later the Athens 2004 Summer Games were rocked by the biggest doping scandal since sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for drugs at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Greece's two top gold medal hopes, sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, missed a doping test hours before the Games opened and then allegedly crashed with their motorcycle, spending the next four days in hospital avoiding drugs tests.

It took a full week before the affair, that by that time had irreparably damaged the Olympics, ended with their voluntary withdrawal.

Many have criticised the IOC for taking too long to deal with these cases allowing them to overshadow the competitions.

"You need to have a proper process, and the people involved have to defend themselves" World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound, a lawyer, told Reuters.

His agency tipped off the IOC on the Austrian's possible wrongdoings.

"But when you get lawyers involved that takes time. We are looking at ways to shorten that," said Pound, also an IOC member.