• Morocco’s Olympic weightlifting coach Bouchaib Ouzzane was in despair yesterday after one of his competitors failed a doping test and another disappeared, thought to have become an illegal immigrant in Greece. Yacine Zouaki failed to return with his weightlifting team to Morocco on Tuesday, Ouzzane said. “Yacine has disappeared. It is probably that he has become an illegal immigrant,” the angry coach told Reuters after returning to Rabat from the Athens Games. “After the competitions I went to the Olympic Village to look for him. I couldn’t find him. I went to his room and I didn’t find anything there either -- no luggage, no clothes,” he said. Morocco were already stunned by the International Weightlifting Federation’s announcement that Wafa Ammouri had failed drugs tests before the Athens Olympics. Zouaki was knocked out of the men’s under 62kg category. He had complained to the media of poor preparations and the lack of equipment, forcing him to borrow trunks from a competitor from the Turkish team.
Women Set New Games Participation Record
• There are a record four women athletes at the Athens Olympics for every six men competing, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said yesterday. At just over 40 percent, the rate of female participation is twice what it was in Montreal in 1976. It is also up appreciably from Atlanta 1996 (34 percent) and Sydney 2000 (38 percent), the IOC added. Although the idea of their inclusion was pooh-poohed by modern Games founder Pierre de Coubertin as “impractical, uninteresting, ungainly and...improper”, women were quick to join in, competing in the second Olympiad in Paris in 1900. They played tennis, croquet and golf and went riding and sailing but were barred from track and field until 1928, when it seems many were still unable to watch the spectacle of women running the 800 meters without fainting. In today’s Games, with 10,864 athletes accredited from 202 countries, there are women competing in 135 different events in nearly all sports represented, including weightlifting and wrestling. Boxing is the only true no-go area. In place of baseball, women have a softball competition. In the equestrian events and in some classes of sailing, women compete with men on equal terms.
Quick Trials Turn Around Taps Out Some US Swimmers
• US men’s head coach Eddie Reese has defended the scheduling of the US swimming trials just a month before the Athens Games, even though some US swimmers have struggled to replicate the form they showed in the qualifying meet. Brendan Hansen, who set two breaststroke world records at the trials in Long Beach, managed just silver and bronze in the 100m and 200m races in Athens. Ian Crocker, who improved his 100m butterfly world record in Long Beach, flopped in his freestyle outings and has yet to prove he can pull himself together and hold off Michael Phelps in the 100m fly. “The other teams that had their trials earlier, they’re having more ups and downs than us,” Reese said. “There’s no way to beat that. We’ve tried it a lot of different ways.”
No Gold but Franzi Hopes to Inspire Lackluster Germans
• Franziska van Almsick may not have won the Olympic gold which she has chased through four Olympics, but the veteran hopes the bronze the women’s team won in the 4x200m relay will inspire the lackluster German swimming team. Van Almsick anchored the team to the only medal which former European swimming giants Germany have won so far in the meet, after she finished just fifth in the 200m freestyle in which she is the world record holder. “I’ve nine Olympic medals but don’t have a gold. But that changes nothing. There’s nothing I can do about it now. I’m just going to support my team for the rest of the meet as they’ve supported me. “We have a bronze medal and we’re going to dangle it on front of the team to act as an incentive.”
Sprinter Thanou Wiped Out
• Posters depicting Greek sprinter Ekaterini Thanou are being hastily replaced around the Olympic host city by those of Australian swimming superstar Ian Thorpe after she pulled out of the Games in the wake of a missed drugs test along with her training partner Kostadinos Kenteris. “Since she won’t start in the Games, it makes no sense to utilize her as an advertising agent. So we decided yesterday to replace her with Ian Thorpe,” said Adidas International corporate spokesman Jan Runau. But the sportswear company’s contract with Thanou will not be terminated until a final decision has been made on her fate. “We have a very clear doping policy. There is a clause in all our sponsoring contracts that we can immediately cancel them if an athlete is proved doped and is banned from his own national or international federation”. So far there is no proof.
Sprint Star Arron Calls for Record Cleanout
• French sprint star Christine Arron says the women’s world record for the 100 meters should be wiped from the books because it is unrealistic. The mark of 10.49sec was set by Florence Griffith-Joyner, around whom doping allegations swirled until her sudden death at the age of 38. “It hurts to see a 100 meters world record at 10.49 seconds,” Arron said ahead of her attempt to win Olympic gold in the event. “But that is the way it is and there is no point dwelling on it.” The French woman’s personal best time is 10.73sec. Griffith-Joyner won an Olympic silver medal at 200m in 1984 before making a startling improvement and won the sprint double at the 1988 Seoul Games. Her world records in the 100m and 200m (21.34sec) have been untouchable ever since. She died in her sleep from an epileptic seizure that led her to suffocate.
Sick of Eric the Eeel
• All eyes will be on Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj and Kenya’s Bernard Lagat when the gun goes for the heats of the 1,500 meters today but there is also Equatorial Guinea’s Roberto Caracciolo to consider. Caracciolo hails from the same country that sent the infamous Eric ‘The Eel’ Moussambani to the Sydney Olympics. Unlike Moussambani, the infamously slow paddler in the Sydney swimming pool, Caracciolo is based at a US college and is competent runner - and he is fed up with questions about Eric, who has not been brought to Athens. “I don’t know if Eric not being here in Athens is a blessing or not. I guess if he had been, it would have taken some of the heat off me. At the same time, I might have just punched him and said ‘what the hell are you doing, man?’” “Unfortunately it’s something the rest of us are going to have to live for many, many years,” Caracciolo told the BBC.
