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Raducan loses appeal

28 September 2000Reuters


Teenage Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan lost her fight on Thursday to get back the Olympic gold medal stripped from her for failing a drugs test after she took a pill to cure a cold.
Andreea Raducan
Andreea Raducan
Mike Blake / Reuters
A three-person panel of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said it had dismissed Raducan's appeal and ruled that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was right to disqualify her "as a matter of law and in fairness to all other athletes."

"The panel is aware of the impact of its decision on a fine, young athlete," the CAS said in a statement.

"It finds, in balancing the interests of Miss Raducan with the commitment of the Olympic movement to drug-free sport, the anti-doping code must be enforced without compromise."

Raducan, who will be 17 on Saturday, tested positive for the banned stimulant pseudo-ephedrine after winning the women's artistic all-round individual competition on 21 September.

Her disqualification set off a wave of sympathy after the IOC acknowledged she had innocently ingested the drug in an over-the-counter cold remedy, Nurofen, administered by the Romanian team doctor.

The sanction has also sparked street protests in Romania, where hundreds of people marched through towns on the eve of the ruling calling for Raducan to be reinstated as Olympic champion.

"My heart is at peace that I have done everything right," the petite gymnast, who weighs just 37kg (82lbs), said after the ruling.

Rather than give her an edge over her rivals, the pill had even made her feel dizzy, Raducan said.

"All I took was one innocent pill that was given to me because I wasn't feeling very well...I just don't understand why everything has turned out this way," she told a news conference.

Olympic legend Nadia Comaneci, who won three gymnastics golds for Romania at the 1976 Games, said the ruling was wrong.

"I understand when someone takes something to enhance their performance and understand that these are the Olympics of zero tolerance," Comaneci told the same news conference.

But she said it had been unfair to Raducan to tell her: "you're innocent but we're not going to give you the medal."

Difficult Descision
The IOC expelled Romanian team doctor Ioachim Oana from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games for prescribing Raducan the cold cure and banned him from the 2002 Winter and 2004 Summer Games.
Andreea Raducan
Andreea Raducan
Grigory Dukor. / Reuters
IOC officials have acknowledged that Raducan gained no competitive advantage from the stimulant the cure contains, but said the rules were clear in stating that the presence of any banned substance in an athlete was grounds for disqualification.

"It was a very difficult decision to take for the IOC executive board, but this ruling demonstrates that it had no option," said IOC director general Francois Carrard.

"This has to be viewed in the context of the new, very strict provisions that are enforced in the fight against doping," he said. "It concerns the entire Olympic movement."

Romanian National Olympic Committee president Ion Tiriac, however, said the IOC had lacked the courage to take account of the human factor in Raducan's case.

Andreea Raducan of Romania
Andreea Raducan of Romania
Mike Blake / Reuters
"I am bitter. I am disappointed," he said.

Five athletes have failed drugs tests in competition at the Sydney Games, four of them medallists.

Several others were forced to leave the Games after positive out-of-competition tests.

The CAS panel said factors such as Raducan's age, weight, need for medication and reliance on her doctor were "irrelevant".

"It is the presence of a prohibited substance in a competitor's bodily fluid which constitutes the offence irrespective of whether or not the competitor intended to ingest the prohibited substance," the panel ruled.

The IOC awarded the individual all-round gold to Romanian Simona Amanar, with compatriot Martia Olaru moving up to silver.

"The medal means nothing to me. I am going to accept it only because it belongs to Romania," Amanar said. "I didn't win it. It was won by Andreea and belongs to Andreea."

The IOC allowed Raducan to keep her team all-round gold and a silver in the individual vault event.

By Paul Holmes

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Countries: Romania
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