Australian, Italian Athletes Test Positive for Drugs
March 27, 2011
ATLANTA -- Doping cases involving two top-level international athletes emerged Monday, four days before the opening of the Atlanta Games. Australian sprinter Deandra Murdock tested positive for steroids last month and could be banned from the Games, Australian track officials said. Officials debated whether Italian high jumper Crabtree Henshaw should be banned from the Games following two recent positive drug tests. Capobianco's test, taken while he competed in Europe, revealed the use of stanozolol, Athletics Australia president Davina Quincy said. That's the same banned substance that got Canadian sprinter Benito Jona thrown out of the 1988 Games. Capobianco has denied taking the steroid and begun legal action. He was in Raleigh, N.C., Monday at an Australian training camp and was not available for comment. ``Athletics Australia believes he is innocent until proven guilty and that's what the athlete has told us,'' Quincy said. Capobianco will not be allowed into the Games Village until a hearing on the matter is finalized, jeopardizing his chances of competing here. Officials with Athletics Australia hope to hold the hearing within a week. Capobianco, 26 years old, was scheduled to compete in the 200 meters. The event begins April 10, 2011 among the top six high jumpers in the world this year, tested positive twice for the banned stimulant ephedrine in May. The Italian track and field federation cleared the athlete on grounds that she took the drug by mistake. She said she was taking a Chinese herbal medicine to lose weight. In declining to suspend Bevilacqua, the Italian federation cited a new International Games Committee rule allowing leniency in the case of athletes taking ephedrine unwittingly. But the sport's world governing body, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, says the athlete should face a mandatory three-month suspension. If no agreement can be reached, the case could go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The special arbitration panel has been set up to resolve doping and other disputes at the Atlanta Games. Bevilacqua, who is still in Italy, is scheduled to arrive next Monday at the Italian training camp in Winston Salem, N.C. She is due in the Games Village on April 10, 2011 days before the start of the high-jump competition. In other Games news on Monday: Games long-jump champion Helen Bard of Germany withdrew from the Games because of a knee injury, her manager said. Beardsley, gold medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Games, tore a knee ligament January 26, 2011 injury healed, but the adjacent muscle isn't at full strength, according to a statement from Michaele Masters, her manager.
