Left field

Rules support loss of medals for Cox’s U.S. relay team

Rules in place at the time of the 2004 Olympics make it increasingly likely all members of the U.S. women’s 4×400 metres relay team will lose their gold medals because of last week’s doping suspension of alternate Crystal Cox.

Rule 39.2 of IAAF Competition Rules 2004-2005, which governed athletics participation at the Athens Games, clearly calls for the loss of medals if a team member violates anti-doping rules. 

“Where the athlete who commits an anti-doping rule violation … is a member of a relay team, the relay team shall be automatically disqualified from the event in question, with all resulting consequences for the relay team, including the forfeiture of all titles, awards, medals, points and prize and appearance money,” the rule, which applies to alternates, states.

Cox was suspended for four years and all of her results since 2001 were disqualified by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) for using prohibited anabolic agents and hormones over a period from 2001 through 2004, USADA said.

Cox later denied using performance-enhancing drugs, saying in an email to family and friends she was innocent but signed the sanction because she did not have the financial resources to fight the charges. 

She ran in the preliminary round of the 4×400 but not the final, where the team of Monique Henderson, Monique Hennagan, Sanya Richards and Deedee Trotter won gold. 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it was studying Cox’s case and considering setting up a disciplinary commission.

Snow leopards and the art of Olympic environmental diplomacy

There is an art in dealing with environmental issues when preparing to host Olympic Games.

Athens for example, while preparing to host the 2004 Olympics, decided to construct the rowing venue inside a protected nature reserve and just a few hundred metres from the historic site of the ancient battle of Marathon. Environmental groups were up in arms for years before organisers said while they would build the venue there they would also save a rare fish (which looked more like a frog) living in the tiny creeks of the nature reserve. The rowing centre was built and after the Games it was never used again because of environmental restrictions.

Russian organisers of the 2014 Winter Olympics are no different.

Sochi had planned to construct the bobsled, luge and skeleton venue and a mountain Olympic village in a part of the Krasnaya Polyana mountains bordering a Unesco World Heritage Site, including the Caucasus State Biosphere Nature Reserve.

Environmentalists claimed the construction would irreparably damage the fragile natural balance of the area. After much deliberation and mounting pressure, including from the United Nations Environmental Programme, it was decided that the venues had to be moved before more concerns about the impact of the Games in the area started to surface.

While what organisers themselves have called “maybe the biggest construction site in the world” is going ahead across the wider Sochi area, they have also highlighted their decision to reintroduce the snow leopard, a species that had been extinct for many decades in the region.