LONDON, 30 June 2003 — International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge has criticized heptathlon champion Denise Lewis for working with controversial German coach Ekkart Arbeit.
“It’s not a good idea and I say that very clearly,” Rogge told the Sunday Times Newspaper. “I think she’s being so unwise, in terms of perception.”
Arbeit was a senior figure in the highly successful East German athletics program in the 1980s which, it later emerged, had been built on the systematic doping of athletes.
Lewis, Olympic champion in Sydney, has been using Arbeit to help her with throwing and conditioning as she prepares to make her comeback to competition next weekend at a European Cup combined events meeting in Tallinn.
Lewis had a baby last year and needs to do well in Tallinn to qualify for the world championships in Paris in August.
The Briton’s decision to work with Arbeit has provoked unease among fellow athletes who feared she would become tainted by association.
“There are no rules being broken but it’s a matter of the broader perception of the public, which has been critical,” Rogge said.
“There’s nothing wrong from a moral or legal point of view because nobody can accuse Lewis of doping. But if you work with someone who has admitted that he participated (in doping) I don’t think it’s wise.”
“This is an association of an Olympic champion, an icon, with a man who has a reputation that’s, what shall we say, not the best, and that’s not good,” Rogge told the newspaper.
“When you are an Olympic champion you also have responsibilities. An athlete is admired and rewarded but they also have to give back. And to give back is to be an example. “To be associated with people who are not a good example is a risk.”
