BBC News Online: Sport: Winter Olympics 98

Second marijuana case at Nagano

Thursday, February 19, 1998 Published at 04:45 GMT
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image: [ A T-shirt adorned with the Canadian flag and a marijuana leaf refers to snowboarder Ross Rebagliati ]
Second marijuana case at Nagano
The president of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, Prince Alexandre de Merode, has confirmed that there has been a second case of marijuana use at the Nagano Games.

But, he said no action could be taken after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned a ban on the Canadian snowboarder, Ross Rebagliati.


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Rebagliati was found to have taken marijuana when he failed a drugs test after winning the snowboarding men's giant slalom. He was initially disqualified, but was later allowed to retain his title after an appeal by the Canadian Olympic Association.

Mr De Merode said: "The CAS judgement does not allow us to take any action."

The CAS ruled that Rebagliati could not be stripped of his gold medal because there was no agreement between the IOC and the International Ski Federation (FIS) who run snowboarding.

Although no-one has yet been named, the second case of marijuana concerns either a skier or snowboarder, as the CAS ruling only applies to FIS rules.

Mr De Merode has made it clear that he wants the drugs ban to include all "social" drugs.

"Be it marijuana, crack, heroin or ecstasy," he said. "It's worth pointing out that most of these drugs can be found in the list of banned substances anyway."

The problem regarding such "social" drugs centres on the confusion in the regulations, with not all federations grouped under the FIS prohibiting the use of marijuana.

The IOC has set up a working group to find a way of enforcing a ban on the Olympic's list of prohibited substances.


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Internet Links

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Summaries

In this section

'Best organised' games close
Germany triumphant
Canada slide to ice hockey defeat
Teenage Tara strikes skating gold
Germany victorious in biathlon relay
Record games for Japan
Nordic combined glory for Norway
Chepalova completes Russian clean-sweep
Germany victorious in medals table
Finland lead in Nordic Combined
Germany takes biathlon relay gold
Gold for US freestyle skier
'We can win gold' says British sports minister


Sport Contents

Winter Olympics 98 Contents


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