OLY: Kenteris, the Icarus of Greek athletics

AAP General News (Australia)
08-15-2004
OLY: Kenteris, the Icarus of Greek athletics

By Pirate Irwin

ATHENS, Aug 14 AFP - The Greeks are fond of their myths and until Thursday they regarded
Olympic 200 metres champion Kostadinos Kenteris as a Herculean figure - by today he was
distinctly looking like Icarus in that he had flown too close to the equvialent of the
athletics sun and come crashing to earth.

Indeed within sight of his crowning moment of glory by repeating his feat of the 2000
Games in Sydney he risks in front of his adoring fans earning pariah status just as Ben
Johnson did in Canada after he tested positive at the 1988 Olympics.

The 200m Olympic champion and training partner Ekaterini Thanou's expulsion from the
team at the hands of their own Olympic Committee for failing to attend a mandatory drugs
test on Thursday, which was followed by a mysterious bike crash, will satisfy those who
always suspected he had risen too fast too quickly.

Judging by IOC president Jacques Rogge's vow that there will be 'zero tolerance' for
drugs offenders, the reigning Olympic 200 metres champion can expect little mercy when
they appear before the IOC's disciplinary Commission on Monday over missing the test.

Kenteris has always been a man of mystery and the past three days have only heightened that aura.

However, while to his compatriots he has been an icon, to many outside Greece the 31-year-old
is a mythical figure due to the rarity of his appearances on foreign tracks apart from
in major championships.

That was the concern raised by the International Olympic Committee when they visited
Athens last year for a Co-Ordinating Committee meeting and asked their hosts why Kenteris
shied away from the lucrative European circuit.

They took offence, according to an IOC member present at the meeting, and said it was
a slur on Kenteris and insisted that all Greek athletes were clean.

"It was typical Greek arrogance," the IOC member told AFP following the revelation
of him and Thanou missing the test on Thursday, apparently because they had left the Olympic
Village to gather their belongings from their home.

The latest controversy comes a year after the same duo angered athletics' governing
body, the IAAF, by turning up in Qatar instead of being in Crete where their national
federation had said they would be.

The IAAF also confirmed that Kenteris and Thanou were under investigation for missing
a doping test in Chicago, Illinois earlier this week.

While many try for the riches of the Golden League series and Grand Prix circuit, Kenteris
has explained his absence from the international scene is not down to any dark practices
on his part but for a simpler reason - unlike the majority of US athletes, he has a life
outside athletics.

He works on the administrative side in the Greek airforce and also earns good money
from the Greek Sports Ministry.

"Because of the support the government has given me since Sydney I don't need to compete
for money on the international circuit," he said in a rare interview.

"I can focus my energies on the major international competitions."

Focus he certainly has on the majors and most effectively, bursting onto the scene
at the Sydney Olympics where he stunned the likes of Ato Boldon, Darren Campbell and John
Capel in thrashing them in the 200m final to become Greece's first male Olympic champion
in athletics since 1912.

The world and European gold medals followed, making him the only man to hold all three
titles, only for the allusions about his success to resurface last year when he withdrew
at the last minute from the world championships in Paris.

Again 'The Teflon Man' - whose coach Christos Tzekos has already served a two year
ban from the sport for preventing drugs testers testing his athletes in 1997 - was defended
to the hilt by the Greek Federation.

"This attack against an athlete who has honoured Greece raises questions about their
motives and can only be malicious," they said.

Kenteris swatted away suggestions that the reasons were anything but innocent, saying
he had an Achilles injury.

"I really wanted to compete in the world championships but I couldn't let anything
jeopardise me running in the Olympics," said Kenteris, who became even more of a hero
when he headed up several fundraisers for the victims and their families of the Aegean
ferry disaster in 2000.

"Of course there is a lot of pressure on me but it's my duty to try and win a gold
medal in front of my home crowd.

"With the Greek crowd behind me it will give me two metres on the opposition."

Unfortunately for him his hopes of delivering the gold medal on Greek soil in the greatest
sporting show on earth and in its spiritual home look certain to be dashed and he has
learnt that you can run but you can't hide.

AFP nh

KEYWORD: OLY DOPING KENTERIS (SPORTFEATURE)

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