|
Tsoumeleka may face jail time
By HellenicAthletes Staff
| Thursday, April 16 2009 10:11:37 PM |
| |
|
|
Olympic race-walk champion Athanasia Tsoumeleka was charged under Greece’s penal code earlier this week with using an illegal performance-enhancing drug.
Athens prosecutor Costas Simitzoglou charged Tsoumeleka with breaking the country’s strict anti-doping laws, recently revised to include jail-time, after she tested positive in January for the drug CERA, an advanced version of the blood-booster EPO.
Last month, Greece's track and field federation handed her a two-year ban from competition, while this week's charge carries a maximum two-year jail term.
Tsoumeleka finished ninth in Beijing in the 20k walk event in a personal best of 1 hour, 27 minutes, 54 seconds. She was almost 3½ minutes behind winner Olga Kaniskina of Russia. In 2004, she won Athens gold in 1 hour, 29 minutes, 12 seconds.
Tsoumeleka, 27, denies knowingly using the substance, has expressed doubts about the whole testing procedure, and upon learning in January that she had tested positive announced her immediate retirement from competition.
*****
© 2009 HellenicAthletes.com.
All Rights Reserved.
This article may NOT be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of the editor, in accordance with United States and international copyright laws. Selective quotations are permissible as long as this website is acknowledged through hyperlink to: www.hellenicathletes.com
|
|
