INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge yesterday refused to apologise over the internet access row which he admitted has been the "hot topic" heading into the Beijing Games.
Rogge, speaking after the IOC's pre-Games executive board meeting, insisted no deal had been struck with the Chinese organisers to accept some website restrictions.
He also pointed out that internet access had improved since the beginning of the
week when several politically sensitive websites were blocked.
Asked if he thought the IOC should apologise to the media over the handling of the internet access issue, Rogge said: "I am not going to apologise for something for which the IOC is not responsible. We are not running the internet in China.
"Let me make it clear. The IOC is in favour of the broadest amount of internet access for the media. That is the bottom line. Secondly, there has been no deal at any time between the IOC leadership and the Games organisers to accept any restrictions.
"When Beijing was awarded the Olympic Games, the IOC promised the media the fullest access to the internet and BOCOG (the organising committee] has said it will deliver."
Meanwhile, the IOC yesterday stripped gold medals from the US men's 4 x 400-metre relay team that competed at the 2000 Olympics in the aftermath of Antonio Pettigrew's admission that he was taking banned substances at the time.
The IOC executive board disqualified the entire team – the fourth gold and sixth overall medal stripped from that US track contingent in the past eight months for drug-taking.
Three golds and two bronzes were previously removed after Marion Jones confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs. During a trial, Pettigrew admitted he used EPO and human growth hormone from 1997 to 2003.
Five of Pettigrew's teammates will also lose their medals: Michael Johnson and twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison ran in the final; Jerome Young and Angelo Taylor ran in the preliminaries.
It was Johnson's fifth gold medal. He has already said he was giving it back because he felt "cheated, betrayed and let down" by Pettigrew's testimony.
The full article contains 357 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
