Lifter fails test

Press, 29 September 1988, Page 44

Lifter fails test

NZPA-Reuter Seoul A Hungarian Olympic weightlifting silver medallist had failed an initial doping test, the Hungarian Olympic chief said yesterday. “It’s true that a Hungarian weightlifter was tested positive on his first test, but there is no complete confirmation,” said Gabor Deak, the president of Hungary’s Olympic Committee. He was waiting for final results from the International Olympic Committee (1.0. C. after a second screening. “He is a silver medallist,” Mr Deak said. “We were told that something was found but we do not know what.” He declined to name the athlete, but Hungary’s only weightlifting silver medallist was Andor Szanyi, aged 24, a locksmith, in the 100 kg class. Mr Deak’s remarks were translated into English by an interpreter with the Hungarian Olympic delegation who initially identified the athlete as a wrestler by mistake. The latest test, if confirmed, would bring to eight the number of doping cases so far at the Games including the 100 metres world record holder, Ben Johnson, of Canada and the two Bulgarian weightlifting gold medallists. The head of the 1.0. C. medical commission, Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium, said the 1.0. C. did not consider doping tests positive until the second screening had been made. He would not comment on results of first tests. Dr Han Moon, the head of the Seoul doping control centre, earlier said an initial screening test on an unidentified athlete had shown traces of stanozolol. Dr Moon said the athlete could not be named until a second analysis of the urine sample had been made in the presence of team officials.