Thanou qualifies, but doubts still exist

ATHENS: Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who was banned for two years after a doping scandal on the eve of the  2004 Olympics, has made the team for next month’s Games and could travel to Beijing, officials said on Tuesday.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) included Thanou in the Greece squad after she finished fifth in a 100 metres race on the island of Crete late on Monday with a time of 11.39 seconds.  “She has made the B time for the team so she is on it,” Greece’s chef de mission Isidoros Kouvelos told reporters during the preliminary squad presentation. The B time is the lower qualification mark that if beaten by another Greek athlete in the same discipline would force Thanou out of the team, although that is highly unlikely. Whether Thanou, who also won the 100m silver medal at the Sydney 2000 Games, will travel to Beijing was unclear. “Officially, she has now made the team but we do not yet know if she wants to go to Beijing,” an HOC official said on condition of anonymity.

“Her statements so far have not helped clear up her intentions,” he said.  Thanou and fellow sprinter Costas Kenteris were at the heart of the biggest Olympic doping scandal in years when they missed a drugs test and then allegedly crashed on their motorcycle hours before the Athens Games opening ceremony.  The pair, both major medals hopes for Greece at the time, were forced to withdraw and later admitted anti-doping rule violations accepting a two-year ban that ended in December 2006. They face separate charges in Greek courts for allegedly staging the bike crash.  Kenteris has not raced since, while Thanou has run in local events this year. Their former coach Christos Tzekos said last week he did not believe Thanou would compete at the Olympics.