Summer Olympics 2000 Coach takes responsibility for failed tests

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Sunday, September 24
Coach takes responsibility for failed tests
Reuters

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- Three Bulgarian weightlifters who were thrown out of the Sydney Olympics for doping returned to Bulgaria on Sunday insisting they were innocent.

"We are innocent and will pursue those who are guilty to the end," said Ivan Ivanov who lost his silver in the men's 56 kg category on Wednesday.

Ivanov, Izabela Dragneva, gold medallist in the women's 48 kg category, and men's 62 kg bronze medalist Sevdalin Minchev were stripped of their medals and kicked out of the Games after positive tests for the banned diuretic furosemide.

Bulgaria's entire weightlifting team was then banned from the Games and suspended for a period of not less than 12 months pending further investigations.

Bulgaria's veteran weightlifting team coach Ivan Abadzhiev said in a television interview that he took responsibility for the expulsion of the team from the Games.

"I take the whole responsibility. I am sorry for the girls and the boys and for their enormous work," Abadzhiev said in a television interview shown on Saturday.

Abadzhiev said he had given the weightlifters a Bulgarian medicine named Orotsetam but the manufacturer had not disclosed that one of its components was the banned substance furosemide.

"There are some 100 ampules left so that they will be checked in a laboratory," Ivanov told reporters at Sofia airport. Ivanov said he had passed a dope test seven days before his competition.

Bulgarian president Petar Stoyanov said further investigation was needed.

"We cannot accuse ourselves before finding out the whole truth," Stoyanov told state news agency BTA.

Bulgaria's weightlifting team was withdrawn from the 1988 Seoul Olympics after a doping scandal.

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