Electronic Telegraph Thursday 14 September 2000 Tom Knight THE triple jumper, Iva Prandzheva, was banned for life yesterday after testing positive for the controversial steroid nandrolone. It was her second doping offence involving steroids. Prandzheva received a four-year ban - which was reduced to two after changes to International Amateur Athletic Federation rules - after testing positive at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. Britain's Ashia Hansen was elevated to fourth place as a result. After returning to the sport, Prandzheva topped the world rankings in 1998 with 15.12 metres and was due to take part in the Sydney Olympics. Prandzheva, 28, who is also an accomplished long jumper, finished third in the triple jump at the European Indoor Championships, in Ghent, in February. Bulgaria's hardline attitude is in direct contrast to the approach to doping adopted in Britain, where four athletes, Linford Christie, Dougie Walker, Gary Cadogan and Mark Richardson, were cleared by UK Athletics, despite testing positive for the same drug. Christie, Walker and Cadogan were subsequently given two-year bans by the IAAF following arbitration hearings last month. Richardson, who withdrew from the Olympics last week, is also due to face an arbitration hearing. Romania, the Czech Republic and Canada have already prevented athletes from taking part in the Olympics by imposing bans for nandrolone. Meanwhile, the German distance runner, Dieter Baumann, arrives in Sydney today, in time for the IAAF arbitration hearing into his nandrolone case. Baumann, the 1992 Olympic 5,000m champion, twice tested positive at the end of last year but declared his innocence, claiming he had been the victim of sabotage. Baumann insisted the nandrolone had been injected into toothpaste at his family home. A subsequent police investigation failed to find any evidence and Baumann was cleared to run again by the German federation's legal committee at the end of June. Triple-jumper Jonathan Edwards has confirmed he will take part in the Oympics despite the death of his mother-in-law. Edwards' wife's mother, Anne, who had been suffering from a brain tumour, died in a Glasgow hospice in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Eamonn Condon WWW.RunnersGoal.com
