INTERNATIONAL athletics officials and the World Anti-Doping Agency could be on a collision course over allegations of a controversial drugs cover-up for two top Hungarian throwers.
A senior WADA source admitted last night that an investigation was already underway into reports that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had received an anonymous tip-off more than 12 months ago saying that discus thrower R
obert Fazekas was using a contraption to catheterise clean urine into his bladder to avoid failing drug tests.
After winning the Olympic discus final on Monday night, Fazekas was thrown out of the Games after he was caught manipulating his urine sample during the post-event drug sample. Reports suggest that he was found with a plastic bag and some tubing while in doping control. He faces a two-year ban.
Two days later, the hammer champion and Fazekas’s training partner, Adrian Annus, announced he was retiring from the sport.
"I'm putting an end to my career," he said. "It isn't worth going through all this even for an Olympic champion's title. I'm being treated like a criminal."
The 31 year-old Hungarian had mentioned nothing of his retirement plans before the Games nor in his post-event press interviews.
Annus, who passed his drug test after the hammer final, is widely implicated in suspicions that some Hungarian throwers have been duping testers for at least a year.
"We want to get to the bottom of this," a source at WADA said last night. "If the international federation has had information about suspicious practises, then we will want to know what they have done about it." Left unsaid was that the enquiries would be directed to the secretary of the IAAF, Istvan Gyulai, who is also Hungarian.
The first move has been to track Annus back to his home town outside Budapest and demand yet another out-of-competition drug test on Friday. Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, said that they would even use DNA tests on Annus’s sample to check that the urine provided was actually that of the hammer thrower’s. "This is something we have in our weaponry," Rogge said. "We didn't need it before, but we have it and it might be used."
Annus also faces the possibility of being stripped of his Olympic gold. "If he fails to comply with all the rules and regulations of the doping code then his medal will be withdrawn," said Pal Schmitt, the head of the Hungarian Olympic committee.
The back-story has all the elements of an old-style Cold War spy thriller. Lars Riedel, the 1996 discus champion from Germany, said that he had been told by another Hungarian thrower last year that Fazekas was systematically rigging his doping tests.
"I was shown how he manipulated tests," said Riedel, adding that the athlete drew the procedure on a piece of paper, showing how Fazekas submitted urine from another person instead of his own. "The drawing showed a long shank, like a catheter.
"The Hungarian also said, ‘Fazekas' body is full of steroids’." Riedel reported the matter to the German athletics federation, which then passed the case on to the IAAF. It is believed that other, anonymous letters about Fazekas and Annus were also sent to the IAAF.
The Lithuanian Virgilijus Alekna, who was upgraded to the gold medal, said Fazekas "punished himself", while the new bronze medallist, Estonia's Aleksander Tammert, said Fazekas "was extremely strong compared to the others - there had been rumours".
Gyulai confirmed that he was aware of the issue and said "we received a letter from an anonymous person from Hungary".
There have long been anecdotal stories of athletes keeping "supplies" of clean urine in their fridge at home, for use on those occasions when the testers have arrived. Catheterising urine into the body can be a quick procedure for women, although it is a more delicate procedure for men. Some believe that the process, repeated frequently enough, may explain incidents of cystitis, an infection of the urinary tract, in some male athletes.
In a Frankenstein-like development, if true, the Fazekas story has generated rumours of some athletes having extra bladders surgically implanted into their bodies, offering an alternative source of "clean" urine almost on demand.
After his drug test in Athens, Fazekas claimed the examiners had been "ruthless and intimate" during the testing process. This time there were two observers to closely monitor the giving of the sample during the procedure, as opposed to one as normal, indicating that the thrower’s methods were being closely followed.
Fazekas had initially been unable to give the required 75 millilitres of urine and sought extra time during which he was discovered trying to substitute his urine with another sample brought in a plastic bag.
But Annus remains unrepentant. "My only sin was to win the gold medal," he said.
The full article contains 834 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
