BAN PROBABLY WILL KEEP CUBAN HIGH-JUMPER OUT OF OLYMPICS

Drug Issues Clouding Games

The only man to clear 8 feet in the high jump probably will not
compete at the Sydney Olympics.

In a highly charged drug case that blurs the lines between sports and
politics, the international track federation Tuesday banned Javier
Sotomayor of Cuba until July 31, 2001.

A three-member panel in Monte Carlo ruled that the world's greatest
high-jumper tested positive for cocaine at the Pan American Games last
summer in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation suspension is the latest
drug episode to threaten the credibility of the Sydney Olympics less
than three months before they begin. While Cuban authorities vowed to
fight Sotomayor's suspension, U.S. officials were facing a
public-relations fiasco of their own.

The sudden resignation of the U.S. Olympic Committee's drug chief
three weeks ago escalated with new charges this week. Wade Exum has
accused the USOC of failing to punish 50 percent of its athletes who
tested positive for banned substances. USOC officials denied the claim.

Other drug-related developments:

Olympic officials have all but given up hope of having a foolproof
test for the banned hormone erythropoietin (EPO) in time for Sydney. A
French test that Olympic officials planned to watch closely was not
approved for the Tour de France, which starts Saturday.

The newly formed World Anti-Doping Agency has signed only two of the
28 international sports federations for its widely heralded
out-of-competition drug testing. That leaves the International Olympic
Committee's efforts to clean up sports before the Summer Games in question.

A decision by the IAAF on Jamaican sprint star Merlene Ottey's
nandrolone case is expected to be announced by Friday. The former
200-meter world champion is trying to stave off a ban from the Olympics.

German distance champion Dieter Baumann won an appeal this week from
the German track federation in a nandrolone case in which he claimed
the banned steroid came from a tube of toothpaste.

Cuban officials made what drug testers considered far-fetched claims
in Sotomayor's case. The '92 Olympic champion tested positive for the
banned recreational drug after winning his fourth consecutive Pan Am
Games high-jump gold medal last July.

Cuban authorities in Winnipeg suggested the substance had been planted
in something Sotomayor, 32, ate or drank. They also charged his test
had been manipulated. They failed to provide evidence to support such
claims.

President Fidel Castro called it a conspiracy against Cuban athletes
the day after the test became public. Sotomayor's case was all the
more embarrassing for the tiny island country because of a rash of
Cuban defections at Winnipeg.

Cuba's sports institute chief defended Sotomayor after Tuesday's
ruling.

``We reaffirm once again our total confidence in Sotomayor,'' Humberto
Rodriguez told the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina.

Veteran 800-meter runner Johnny Gray had no sympathy for Sotomayor,
although cocaine generally is not regarded as a performance aid.

``If he is guilty, he deserves what he is getting,'' Gray
said.

Gray, who plans to run Saturday at the GMC Envoy Open at Stanford,
called for tougher drug testing in light of the recent
controversies.

``Blood testing is one way to get to the bottom of it,'' the U.S.
record holder said.

Gray, 40, also said he knows athletes who used illegal drugs. He
refused to identify them.

``They came up to me and said, `Johnny, if you are taking what I am
taking, you'd break 1:40,' '' he said. ``I watched them shoot it into
their system. I watched them take the urine tests and pass.''

Stanford's Michael Stember, an up-and-coming middle-distance runner
also competing Saturday, called for the IAAF to introduce blood testing.

But blood tests are fraught with problems. One, it is much more
expensive to administer than the collection of urine specimens. Two,
it is more invasive with the possibility of transmittable diseases
such as HIV.

Still, some athletes and sporting officials believe blood testing is
the only way to combat the growing use of currently undetectable
hormones such as erythropoietin. EPO is a blood-boosting agent that
increases endurance from 10 percent to 15 percent.

While working with the USOC, Exum cooperated with Australian officials
trying to devise a blood test to detect EPO. But when he complained
that one part of the project amounted to racial profiling, he claimed
he was forced to resign.

An African-American, Exum plans to file a racial discrimination suit
against the USOC next month, attorney John W. McKendree said. The
Denver lawyer said the complaint will support Exum's claims of
unpunished athletes, including scores who tested positive for the male
hormone testosterone.

If true, it would be an explosive development in America's
drug-testing campaign.

The USOC has portrayed Exum as a disgruntled employee whose position
was being phased out because of the creation of an independent
drug-testing agency.

The crisis led the White House drug czar to call for the new group to
immediately take over the testing of American athletes headed to Sydney.

Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control
Policy, said this week that the new agency could ease athletes'
concerns over the current system. The new body is scheduled to take
effect after the 2000 Summer Olympics.