MONACO — World high jump record-holder Javier Sotomayor was cleared to compete in next month’s Sydney Olympic Games on Wednesday when the International Amateur Athletic Federation decided to halve his two-year ban for taking cocaine.
A special meeting of the IAAF’s ruling council decided on humanitarian grounds to reinstate the 1992 Barcelona Games champion after a plea from Cuban council member Alberto Juantorena.
After the council had met for 10 hours in an effort to clear up its outstanding doping cases before the Sydney Games, IAAF president Lamine Diack said that Sotomayor had passed 300 tests in his career.
‘We thought this athlete deserved a lot of our support,’ Diack said. ‘We said we can give him the possibility to compete again. He is a human being, he made a mistake.’
Sotomayor, 32, tested positive at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, in August last year. He denied taking the recreational stimulant and was cleared by his national federation.
The decision was over-ruled by the IAAF’s arbitration panel and then in turn overturned at an emergency one-day council meeting convened on Wednesday to clear up remaining doping cases before the Games.
In other decisions, Dieter Baumann, the Barcelona Games 50000-metre champion, had his positive test for nandrolone referred to arbitration while Linford Christie, who won the Olympic 100m title in the same year, will have his nandrolone case heard by the panel on 14 August. Baumann startled the all-conquering Africans with his win in Barcelona after taking silver four years earlier at the 1988 Seoul Games.
An outspoken anti-drugs campaigner, he tested positive for the anabolic steroid last November. He maintained his innocence, saying his toothpaste had been spiked, and on 23 June he was cleared to run by the German athletics federation.
Diack said the 35-year-old German was free to compete in the meantime and added the arbitration panel would meet before 10 September to give Baumann the chance to compete in Sydney.
Date set for British trio
The council decided that British athletes Christie, Doug Walker and Gary Cadogan would have their cases heard in 12 days.
The trio were cleared by the British governing body UK Athletics after testing positive for nandrolone but were subsequently banned by the IAAF pending a decision by its arbitration panel. A hearing originally scheduled for 6-9 July was postponed.
Although the hearing will be held only a month before the start of the Sydney Games its conclusions will be largely academic.
Christie has retired and said he has no interest in the proceedings because he considers he has already been cleared.
Walker, the European 200m champion, won an order at the High Court in London allowing him to compete pending the hearing but then said this week he would not take part in the British trials because he did not consider he could be ready in time for the Games. Cadogan, a 400m hurdler, has retired.
The council also sent the case of Hungarian women’s 400m flat and hurdles sprinter Judit Szekeres to arbitration. Szekeres was cleared by her national federation after a positive test for the steroid stanolzolol.
UK Athletics chief executive David Moorcroft presented the council with the results of a recent study conducted at Aberdeen University which concluded that a combination of dietary supplements and vigorous exercise could create excessive levels of nandrolone.
The study was instrumental in persuading a UK Athletics disciplinary committee to clear Commonwealth 400m silver medallist Mark Richardson after a nandrolone positive.
The IAAF has received the necessary documents from UK Athletics on the Richardson case but they must first be considered by the Doping Commission which will recommend to the council whether or not he should go to arbitration.
Diack said the report was interesting but added the problem of nandrolone needed further research.
John Mehaffey
Source: SOCOG