Disgraced Olympic sprinter Kenteris eyes Beijing Games comeback

Dec 14, 2006, 15:07 GMT

Athens - Disgraced Olympic sprinter Costas Kenderis plans to make his comeback at the Beijing Olympics once his two-year suspension ends next week.

'I will do everything I can to be ready for Beijing. That is why I may not race at all during 2007,' Kenteris said in an interview with Greek magazine Status.

At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Kenteris and Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou caused the biggest Olympic doping scandal since Ben Johnson was stripped of his 100-metre gold medal at the 1998 Seoul Games following a positive drugs test.

The two sprinters were accused of missing a doping test and staging a motorcycle accident to avoid being tested on the night of the 2004 opening ceremony.

Kenteris, who won a gold medal in the 200-metre relay at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and Thanou, a silver Olympic medallist in the 100 metres, were Greece's biggest medal hopes for the Athens Games.

Both Kenteris and Thanou were cleared by a Greek disciplinary committee but the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) appealed the verdict and took the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport before settling it ahead of the final hearing in June.

'Before the 2004 Olympics I had decided that the 200 metres race there would be the last of my career. But the way things have turned out I think it is worth trying again,' he said in the interview.

However, he said that he was racing against time and that his age was a problem for a successful return.

'I am already racing against time. I am 33 - but I want to simply race again - my biggest victory will be just kneeling down on the track at the start line.'

While Kenteris did not specifically mention his coach Christos Tzekos, who faces separate charges for providing authorities with false information on the motorcycle accident, he did admit to trusting the wrong people.

'I have made many mistakes. For example I trusted people and gave them power although I should not have done this,' he said.