Balco founder Victor Conte.
Photo: Paul Sakuma

■Fifteen Greek athletes test positive to steroids.
■Suggestions of organised drug ring.
■Athens gold medallist formally excluded from Beijing.

The International Olympic Committee has not released test results from the track and field program, but samples from the opening night's competition, including those of Jamaican 100 metres champion Usain Bolt, were expected soon. Bolt has been drug tested seven times since arriving in Beijing, the Jamaican team doctor, Herb Elliott, has said.

Conte said he had no evidence of doping by any of the winners but noted that when sprint times "begin falling like rain, questions arise".

He said this was especially so when the record breakers came from Caribbean nations such as Jamaica where there was no independent anti-doping agency.

Conte said Bolt's 100 metres in 9.69 seconds was almost unbelievable.

He said the time of the women's 100 metres champion Shelly-Ann Fraser — a blazing 10.78 seconds — was an improvement of more than half a second in a year.

"I have no knowledge that these individuals were involved in wrongdoing. All I know is that they and other athletes come from regions where minimal off-season testing is administered," he said.

Conte wrote in the New York Daily News that former head of WADA Dick Pound stepped down weeks after being tipped off, including being given the drug supplier's name, phone number and contacts. Pound was replaced by Australia's John Fahey.

Conte said those in WADA who conducted investigations and drug testing had not acted on the tip-off.

He said there was no routine off-season testing from October to January, when cheating athletes use steroids in combination with intensive weight training. Testing at major competitions and between grand prix meetings was ineffective.

Fahey had said on the eve of the Games it was critical that 100 metres winners were clean to preserve the integrity of the sport. He said Conte's comments lacked credibility because he was a convicted criminal charged with distributing drugs.

■The IOC has formally excluded the Athens Olympic gold medal 400 metres hurdler Fani Halkia from Beijing. It has directed the world body, IAAF, sanction her and that Greek authorities investigate possible violations of Greek law by her coach George Pangiotopoulos.

Pangiotopoulos told a Greek television station he welcomed an inquiry. "I believe there has been sabotage or tampering at doping control," he said.

Halkia tested positive to the steroid methyltrienolone at an Olympics camp in Japan on August 10.

The president of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, Minos Kryiakou, suggested a doping ring might be behind the 15 positive test results to the same drug. This year, 11 Greek weightlifters, a swimmer and sprinters Dimitris Regas and Tassos Goussis have tested positive. "This is the strangest thing, because it leads to the conclusion that there is an organised effort," he said.

(www.theage.com.au)