Cross-country
skier Beckie Scott happy her bronze medal will turn into silver.
Nov. 30, 2002
(CP.) - Sometime in the near future cross-country skier Beckie Scott
will receive an Olympic silver medal. It won't be a ceremony shown on
national television followed by fireworks. Scott won't be able to celebrate
one of the most exciting moments of her life by climbing on a podium
with a silver medal around her neck and waving to cheering fans banishing
Maple Leaf flags.
It won't be like
it should have been, but for Scott it will have to do.
"It's not the same
feeling for sure," Scott said Saturday, a day after a ruling upholding
suspensions of two Russian cross-country skiers meant the bronze medal
she won at the Salt Lake City Games will be upgraded to silver.
"In a way to me
it's a bonus. I had my moment on the podium in Salt Lake City. That's
probably the happiest I could have been on that day. This is just a
bonus now."
Not only did Russians
skiers Larissa Lazutina and Olga Danilova apparently cheat to finish
ahead of Scott in the five-kilometre pursuit race at Salt Lake City,
they stole a moment that should have belonged to the native of Vermilion,
Alta., her family and friends.
"I can't be thinking
about what could have happened, what should of happened," Scott said
in a telephone interview from Luleo, Sweden.
"It did happen.
That's the way it goes, I guess."
The Court of Arbitration
for Sport on Friday denied appeals by Lazutina and Danilova to overturn
drug-related suspensions stemming from the Olympics. The ruling allows
the International Olympic Committee to strip the silver from Lazutina,
one of the most decorated athletes in Winter Olympics history, and give
it to Scott.
"I'm really happy,"
Scott said about the decision. "This is what we were waiting for. I'm
really glad they (the court) upheld the decision and rejected the appeal.
It's good news."
Scott could still
receive a gold medal.
The Court of Arbitration
for Sport will now hear an appeal by the Canadian and Norwegian Olympic
Committees that argues the IOC should strip the two Russians of all
the medals they won at Salt Lake. "I hope it works," said Scott, who
was traveling from Kuusamo, Finland, where she had finished 14th in
a 10-kilometre World Cup race, to Davos, Switzerland, where she will
compete next week.
"I think it is a
legitimate appeal and it's based on the right motivation. I'm not sure
it will (win). I hope it does."
Dick Pound, a senior
IOC member from Canada and head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, supports
the appeal.
"I agree with and
have encouraged the challenge," he said in an e-mail to The Canadian
Press. "I thought the IOC missed an opportunity in Salt Lake City."
The appeal could
be heard before Christmas or early in the new year. That means the waiting
game Scott has played since the Games ended last February continues
"It's been out of
my control from the beginning," she said. "There was nothing I could
do about it. I stopped worrying about it and let things happen as they
would."
Anton Scheier, high
performance director for Cross Country Canada, called the wait frustrating.
"Beckie should have received a silver medal at least back in February,"
he said from Ottawa. "I'm sure she has missed out on some opportunities
in the intervening time where a silver medal, or even a gold, would
have changed a few things."
At the conclusion
of the Games, Lazutina was stripped of her gold medal in the 30-kilometre
race and Danilova was also disqualified from that event, in which she
finished eighth, after both tested positive for darbepoetin, which boosts
production of oxygen-rich red blood cells.
The two were allowed
to keep medals from other races, including the five-kilometre event,
because they passed drug tests in those events.
But Lazutina was
suspended for two years by the International Ski Federation for positive
drug tests at World Cup competitions in December prior to the Games.
In their appeals,
the Russians never denied using the banned substance, but argued the
tests used at the Games only accidentally detected the darbepoetin.
"I was pretty amazed
they appealed," Scott said between bites of her supper. "It was a clear
cut and dried case of a doping infraction. To appeal that seemed to
be not quite right. I don't think about those two on a personal level."
Jim Morris
(CP-AP)
-- Canadian cross-country skier Beckie Scott will get an Olympic silver
medal after the IOC on Sunday stripped Russian cross-country skier Larissa
Lazutina of her remaining medals from the 2002 Salt Lake City Games
due to positive drug tests.
Oct.
20th 2003
With Lazutina losing
the gold in the five-kilometre race, Scott of Vermilion, Alta., moves
up to the silver medal. She is the first North American woman to win
an Olympic cross-country skiing medal.
"Beckie raced brilliantly
in Salt Lake and nothing can change that," Canadian cross-country coach
Dave Wood said from Calgary. "This is as much a victory for the process
of cleaning up the sport as it is about ski racing. When these things
drag on and drag on and drag on, sometimes it's hard to stay optimistic
the proper outcome will happen."
Lazutina, one of
the most decorated athletes in Winter Olympics history, had already
been stripped of her gold medal in the 30-kilometre classical race after
testing positive for the banned endurance-enhancer darbepoetin.
However, she had
not been disqualified from other events because she had passed drug
tests after those races.
After the Olympics,
it emerged that Lazutina had also tested positive for darbepoetin months
earlier. The international ski federation ruled she should have been
ineligible to compete in Salt Lake City and banned her for two years.
"I'm pretty sure
it would have been my preference to take this a year and a half ago,
but that's not the way things went," Scott told CFRN TV. "As I've said
all along, I was extremely happy on the day that I did win the medal
in Salt Lake -- that it was a bronze didn't matter at that time, I was
just happy to win an Olympic medal. Anything that's coming after is
a bonus."
The Russian filed
several appeals, which were turned down. Last week, Switzerland's highest
court upheld the sanctions, clearing the way for the IOC to strip Lazutina's
other medals.
"It's too bad it's
take that long to get this far," said Dick Pound, a senior IOC member
from Canada who heads the World Anti-Doping Agency. "Once you get things
in the hands of lawyers, especially defense lawyers who don't have much
of a defense, their objective is to delay, delay, delay, and hope the
problem disappears."
No action was taken
Sunday regarding another Russian cross-country skier, Olga Danilova,
who also tested positive for darbepoitin in Salt Lake City but was allowed
to keep her gold medal in the 5K race.
Like Lazutina, she
was banned for two years by the international ski federation. The Swiss
court upheld her sanction last week, but other appeals involving her
case are continuing.
If Danilova eventually
loses her first-place finish, Scott would move up to the gold.
"There's one shoe
that still has to drop," Pound said.
Lazutina will lose
silver medals in the 15K free mass start and 5K free pursuit. Her fourth-place
finish in the 10K classical race has also been removed from the record
books.
The IOC said it
would ask the Russian Olympic committee to make sure Lazutina's medals
and diplomas are handed back.
Under the amended
results, Katerina Neumannova of the Czech Republic goes from fourth
to third in the 5K race.
"Beckie went to
the medal ceremony at Salt Lake. But for somebody who finished fourth
and will move up to receive a medal, they missed out on that, and that's
the really sad part," said Wood.
In the 15K event,
Neumannova gets the silver and Julija Tchepalova of Russia the bronze.
Also still pending
is action against Johan Muehlegg, the German-born Spanish cross-country
skier who won three gold medals in Salt Lake City. He was stripped of
his gold medal in the 50K event after testing positive for darbepoetin
but was allowed to keep two other golds.
Muehlegg's case
remains under various appeals. He also is serving a two-year doping
ban.
Norwegian and Canadian
athletes and officials filed appeals to get Lazutina, Danilova and Muehlegg
stripped of all medals.
The Court of Arbitration
for Sport, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is due to hear that case
in September.
To avoid similar
confusion in the future, the IOC board decided Sunday to amend its charter
to give the committee the discretion to strip an athlete of all medals
from an Olympics for a single doping offense.
"You sign up and
say , 'I'm not going to cheat during the Olympics,' and if you're caught
cheating once during the Olympics than whatever results you've had are
taken away," Pound said.
The IOC, however,
will still have the option of dealing with cases on an individual basis.
Pound singled out the case of Andreea Raducan, the teenage Romanian
gymnast who lost a gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics after testing
positive for a stimulant contained in a cold pill.
"You want to have
enough flexibility to deal with the Raducan thing, where some lunatic
doctor gives you a couple of horse pills," Pound said. "You have to
lose the result from that event but maybe not from all of them."
