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Perec arrives back in Paris Associated Press PARIS -- French 400-meter star Marie-Jose Perec, who fled the Sydney Olympics, arrived in Paris early Friday and was whisked off to an undisclosed location. Perec and her American companion, Anthuan Maybank, left Singapore late Thursday on an Air France flight that arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport around dawn. Perec left Sydney on Wednesday, reportedly saying she had been accosted by an unidentified man in her hotel room. Lofti Ibareodi, a passenger in the first class cabin in which Perec traveled, said the athlete appeared calm. Perec did not disembark with other passengers and was apparently met on the tarmac by airport officials. Her immediate whereabouts were not known. Speaking from Sydney, French Sports Minister Marie-Jose Buffet said that she had spoken with Perec on the telephone and that the runner said she had been threatened. "She told me ... that she had had threats, too much pressure and that therefore she had decided to withdraw," Buffet told France Info radio. Her departure canceled an anticipated duel with Australian Cathy Freeman that was expected to be one of the high points of the Olympics. The president of the French Athletics Federation, Philippe Lamblin, told the newspaper Le Parisien that Perec put pressure on herself by making her own living arrangements in Sydney. "Everything would have been easier if she had accepted staying at the Olympic village," he was quoted as saying. "With her, everything is difficult and complicated." At Singapore's Changi Airport, Maybank, a former 400-meter runner, rushed at free-lance TV cameraman Kyme Hallion, an Australian, when he tried to film Perec on her arrival there Thursday, Hallion said. "He came at me like a raging bull," Hallion said. Perec begged Maybank to leave Hallion alone, the cameraman said. |  | ALSO SEE Aussie papers say Perec 'running scared' of Freeman Perec says hotel break-in forces her to leave Games | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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