Three athletes to skip Beijing over doping

Three athletes to skip Beijing over doping

Three athletes won't be competing in Beijing over doping allegations. The news came as the IOC pulled a gold medal back from the U.S. 1,600-metre relay team at the 2000 Games in Sydney over doping.

U.S. swimmer Jessica Hardy withdrew from the Games on Saturday. The 21-year-old had failed a drug test during trials last month.

She tested positive for a stimulant in one test, but the second and third tests came back negative.

Hardy, who competed in the 100-metre breast stroke, maintained her innocence but said she would withdraw in the best interests of her team.

Two Romanian athletes announced Saturday that they were retiring. Elena Antoci and Cristina Vasiloiu, both runners in the 1,500-metre event, had been dropped from their country's Olympic team on suspicion of doping.

The IOC's withdrawal of the gold medal is seen as something as a formality.

The move comes two months after runner Antonio Pettigrew's admission in May that he had used EPO , a performance-enhancing substance, and human growth hormone from 1997 to 2003.

Five others lost their gold medals from that event in Sydney: Michael Johnson and twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison ran in the final; Jerome Young and Angelo Taylor ran in the preliminaries.

Johnson, a world record holder in the 200 and 400-metre sprints, has already said he would return the medal because he felt "cheated, betrayed and let down" by Pettigrew.

Both Alvin and Calvin Harrison have been suspended in the years after Sydney for doping violations. Jerome Young has been banned for life because of doping violations.

Previously, Olympian Marion Jones lost her five medals from Sydney after confessing to the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Jones had participated in the women's 1,600-metre relay team. That team lost its medal as well.

One of the athletes who might be affected by a reallocation of Jones's medals is Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who won silver in Sidney.

However, the IOC is leery about handing the gold to Thanou.

Just before the 2004 Athens Games, she missed a drug test -- as did fellow Greek runner Kostas Kenteris. They claimed they were injured in a motorcycle accident.

The pair were forced to withdraw from the Games and were later suspended for two years.

This coming Thursday, an IOC disciplinary panel will decide if Thanou can run in Beijing. The 33-year-old has again qualified in the 100-metre sprint.

Her lawyer has threatened legal action if she is ruled ineligible.

Air quality

The IOC has other issues on its plate besides doping.

Air quality in Beijing is another top issue before the Games begin on Aug. 8, CTV's Steve Chao told Newsnet from Beijing.

"In the last few weeks, we've seen a heavy amount of smog blanketing the city," he said.

"However, today when the IOC members met, they were greeted with blue skies and lots of sunshine. The Chinese government has been doing everything trying to clear the air for the athletes."

But there's no guarantee the air will remain clean over the course of the Games, he said.

Internet censorship

Internet censorship has been another controversial issue for the Games.

The IOC said that having the Olympics in Beijing would help promote democratic development. But it then found itself embarrassed when foreign journalists realized they still couldn't access a number of websites.

Access to some of those sites was lifted for foreign journalists, but the usual controls on the BBC and Deutsche Welle websites remained in place for the general Chinese population.

"I'm not going to make an apology for something that the IOC is not responsible for," IOC President Jacques Rogge told a news conference in Beijing on Saturday. "We are not running the Internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the Internet.''

Earlier Saturday, Rogge was quoted as saying "foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China. There will be no censorship on the Internet.''

IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies implied that Rogge, who is Belgian, may have misspoken when he talked about "no censorship" because he was speaking in English, which is not his first language.

"There's been no change in the IOC's position," she said. "Again, I think we are trying to hang on every single word often spoken by people whose mother tongue isn't English. Let me be clear again: The IOC would like to see open access for the media to be able to do their job."

Chao said discussions about Internet access remain ongoing between the IOC and the Beijing Games Organizing Committee (BOCOG).