ITALY: OLYMPIC GAMES - Eight cross-country skiers have been suspended for five days on health grounds.

Record ID: 332032

  • Title: ITALY: OLYMPIC GAMES - Eight cross-country skiers have been suspended for five days on health grounds.
  • Date: 11th February 2006
  • Summary: WIDE: FLAGS
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVAJM3BP0459O57A6CQDTU0U0BQ
  • Story Text: Eight cross-country skiers, including an Olympic gold medallist from Germany, have been suspended for five days on health grounds.
    The suspensions drew a swift response from Germany's team captain at the Winter Games who called the way they learnt of the news as disgraceful and said he would try to get support for an appeal.
    The International Ski Federation (FIS) said the skiers had been banned from competing after tests showed they had an abnormally high red blood cell count.
    The suspensions started on Thursday and run until Monday when the eight will be tested again. If the levels remain high they face a further five-day ban.
    The cross-country programme opens on Sunday with two races followed by two more on Tuesday.
    The FIS said on Friday, the opening day of the Games, that among the athletes was German Evi Sachenbacher Stehle, 25, who won a gold medal in the women's relay and a silver in the women's sprint in Salt Lake City.
    "My first thought was, 'Shit! A five-day suspension and I will miss my most important race on Sunday,'" Sachenbacher Stehle told reporters before breaking down in tears at a news conference at Pragelato, venue for the cross-country races.
    The doctor for the German ski association Ernst Jacob said : " We have discussed this with FIS not only in last weeks, but last months, last year (Eve Sachnbachers high red cell count) . We know what the problem can be and now at high altitude here at the Olympic games we know we have a problem.
    The other athletes named by the FIS are Sean Crooks (Canada), Sergey Dalidovich (Belarus), Jean Marc Gaillard (France), Alexsandr Latzukin (Belarus), Natalia Matveeva (Russia), Kikkan Randall (U.S.) and Leif Zimmermann (U.S.).
    But World Anti-Doping Agency Chairman Dick Pound said : "We don't know whether it's doping. The levels are so high that it would be unhealthy. It could be consistent with doping or it could be just a medical condition, but the way that the federations deal with this is that they say it would be dangerous for your heart and blood pressure and so on, so you should not ski."
    Providing the final word on the saga IOC President Jacques Rogge confirmed " Today there is no doped athlete in the Olympic Games."
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