By Simon Turnbull, Athletics Correspondent 20 March 2005
The coach of Kostantinos Kenteris and Ekaterina Thanou insisted yesterday that he was happy to take the blame for the failure of the Greek sprinters to attend drug test appointments on the eve of the Athens Olympics as it emerged precisely why the pair had been cleared by their national athletics federation. "I do not feel like a sacrificial lamb," Christos Tzekos maintained in the aftermath of Friday's decision by the Hellenic Amateur Athletic Association's decision to absolve Kenteris and Thanou but ban their erstwhile trainer for four years. "I am delighted with the result. As long as they are innocent, it is fine with me." Both have cut their ties with Tzekos since the furore on the eve of the Games last August when they checked out of the Athletes' Village without attending drug tests and ended in hospital after allegedly being involved in a motorbike accident. Whether Kenteris, 31, the surprise Olympic 200m champion in 2000, and Thanou, 30, winner of the 100m silver medal behind Marion Jones in Sydney, will get the chance to return to the international area, however, remains to be seen. Although cleared by the Greek federation of having deliberately missed three separate drugs tests in the lead-up to last year's Olympics - in Chicago and Tel Aviv, as well as in Athens - Kenteris and Thanous still face the prospect of being banned. The world governing body of the sport, the International Association of Athletics Federations, expressed "surprise" at the verdict, but IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said that the documentation would be considered by the IAAF's doping review board and that the matter could be referred to the Court of Arbitration in Sport in Lausanne. http://sport.independent.co.uk/general/story.jsp?story=621905
