Sotomayor cleared to jump in Sydney

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2000

LONDON -- Cuban high jump champion Javier Sotomayor was cleared Wednesday to compete in the Olympics when track and field's ruling body cut his suspension for cocaine use in half.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation cited "exceptional circumstances" for the move, pointing to his previously clean drug record and humanitarian work.

Sotomayor's coach said from Havana that while the high jumper is pleased he can compete in the Sydney Games, he is unhappy the IAAF did not exonerate him.

The decision "assumes that he had consumed that disgusting substance," Guillermo de la Torre told the Associated Press from Latinoamericano Stadium, where Sotomayor was planning a practice.

The IAAF also opened the door for former Olympic 5,000-meter champion Dieter Baumann to compete in Sydney during a special meeting at its Monaco headquarters to handle pending drug cases.

It sent Baumann's case to arbitration and said he was "free to compete" until an arbitration hearing, which could be held in early September. The Sydney Games start Sept. 15.

Sotomayor, a two-time world champion and 1992 Olympic gold medalist, is the only jumper to clear 8 feet. He was stripped of his gold medal at last year's Pan American Games after testing positive for cocaine.

Five weeks ago, an IAAF arbitration panel overturned a ruling by the Cuban Athletics Federation that allowed him to continue competing domestically and in other nonsanctioned meets.

The 32-year-old high jumper denied using drugs, and Cuban President Fidel Castro and the country's track federation claimed his urine samples had been manipulated.

"Exceptional circumstances take into account the career of Sotomayor, the fact that during 15 years he underwent 300 doping tests, all negative," IAAF spokesman Giorgio Reineri said.

Baumann was banned for two years for a positive test last fall for the anabolic steroid nandrolone. He was cleared two weeks ago by the German federation's legal panel, which ruled there had been irregularities in the collection, storage and delivery of his urine samples.

Bobsledders ransacked

SALT LAKE CITY -- Thieves have undercut the medal hopes of the U.S. bobsled team. Eleven sets of experimental runners worth almost $45,000 were stolen, and it is unlikely they can be replaced before the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

"We have the Olympic dreams of at least 50 athletes and coaches wrapped up in this," former bobsled pilot Travis Bell said. "We have got to have them back."

Bell spent two years soliciting $200,000 to develop runners that would make the U.S. team competitive internationally. The runners were finished this year and tests in Calgary showed them to be the fastest the U.S. team had seen.

In bobsled, fractions of a second can decide victory, and success can hinge on the secret recipes for the alloy mixtures used to make the runners.

Also stolen with the runners were 10 rifles and shotguns. Police speculate thieves saw the guns and thought all cases had the same contents.

For Naples' Brian Shimer, top bobsled pilot and four-time Olympian, the theft was a double whammy. He not only lost the runners he hoped would give him an edge in 2002, he lost some of the runners with which he built his career. Russian coach Peter Kenist, who designed Shimer's runners, died in 1991. The formula for the runners went with him.

The USBSF set up a fund for donations to assist in the recovery from the theft. Contributions may be made to: USBSF-Runners, 421 Old Military Road, Lake Placid, N.Y. 12946.

EQUESTRIAN: Todd Minikus, riding Oh Star, was the only rider to leave all 16 jumps standing and moved into first place in the U.S. Equestrian team Olympic show jumping trials in San Juan Capistrano, Calif. Minikus of Loxahatchee moved past Laura Kraut of Oconomowac, Wis., who led after the first set of trials in June.

TENNIS: Pete Sampras says he might play in the 2004 Olympics in Athens. "(This year) was never a consideration," Sampras said after winning in the second round of the Tennis Masters Series-Canada in Toronto. "If I'm going to go to the Olympics, it might be when I'm done playing. But not right now. I know the next one's in Athens and -- being a Greek -- that's a possibility." Sampras suggested the Olympics would be more appealing to some players if the format was changed to better represent nations and team play. "It's a 128 draw. We play that all year around," he said. "If we have more of a team concept, like the World Team Cup, that's more (with) the Olympic spirit."

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.

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