Jordanian lifter fails drug test,
expelled from Games
Asia's top Olympic official has accused weightlifting's governing body of not doing enough to combat doping after a Jordanian lifter became the first Asian Games athlete to test positive for drugs.
Jordanian weightlifter Ayed Khawaldeh was expelled from the Games after testing positive for triamterene, a diuretic which athletes use to help them lose weight, allowing them to compete in lower weight categories.
Khawaldeh, 25, admitted the offence at a meeting between Olympic Council of Asia officials and the Jordanian team, the OCA said in a statement announcing his disqualification.
"The weightlifter said he used the substance while on a three-week training camp, knowing that it was a diuretic,'' the OCA said.
Khawaldeh has been expelled from the athletes' village, had his results nullified, and faces a two-year ban from the International Weightlifting Federation.
The OCA also said it had sent a "strong warning" to the Jordanian Olympic Committee.
But Jordan's team doctor said he hoped Khawaldeh would escape with a caution. He said Khawaldeh had not known that the drug, which he took in Turkey while preparing for the Games, was banned and he was not trying to cheat.
"He thought it was a simple drug like paracetemol," Mohammad Abu-Ain said. "He's a simple guy, he didn't know."
After a midnight meeting to discuss the case, OCA president Sheikh Ahmad al-Sabah criticised the IWF for not doing enough to educate its members about drugs. He noted that an Egyptian lifter also failed a recent drug test.
"Weightlifting is facing a very big problem with doping in their sport, and they have a very big war against doping," Sheikh Ahmad said.
The drug helped Khawaldeh lose weight to compete in the 56kg class on Monday. He placed seventh, so was caught in a random test.
The OCA said his usual body weight is 60 kg, but he weighed in at 55.8 kg on the day of competition.
Sheikh Ahmad said he was "really surprised" by the positive result because Khawaldeh had not been expected to contend for medals.
"I'm still crossing my fingers that it will be the only case because in Hiroshima we had, as everybody knows, 11 cases," he said. "If we have one, maximum two, cases, this will be very useful for the movement in this continent and will show we are solving the problem."
Eleven Chinese team members returned positive tests at the previous Asiad in 1994, but the results were not made public until after the event.
OCA medical committee chairman Yoshio Kuroda said the organisers had spent about $4.5 million on the drug fight here.
"This time we have very good technology and very good equipment," Kuroda said.
All drug tests at the Games are being carried out with the most sophisticated tool available, a $0.5 million piece of equipment called a carbon-isotope ratio mass spectrometer.
The technology was first used at the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, earlier this year, but for only one in every five tests.
AP
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