SNOWBOARDER WINNER STRIPPED OF GOLD

NAGANO, Japan--Dealing a body blow to the Olympics' newest and most
rebellious sport, the governing board of the Winter Games stripped a
Canadian snowboarding champion of his 3 -day-old gold medal today after
drug tests turned up trace amounts of marijuana in his system. Canada's
Olympic association immediately appealed the International Olympic
Committee's decision, blaming secondhand smoke and saying snowboarder Ross
Rebagliati pledged he hadn't used marijuana since April 1997.

Rebagliati, 26, who won the first-ever Olympic gold medal for snowboarding
in the men's giant slalom Sunday, became the first athlete to test positive
for drugs at the Nagano Games. Officials said they could not recall another
Olympic case involving marijuana. In a statement read by a teammate at a
news conference this afternoon, he maintained his innocence. "I've been
training for 11 years to be the best snowboarder in the world," he said.
"I've worked too hard to let this slip through my fingers."

The Rebagliati revelation threatens to undermine snowboarding just as its
Olympic medal debut and Visa's recent sponsorship lend the Gen-X sport
legitimacy beyond the world of Mountain Dew commercials, ESPN/2 features
and "dude"-laden speech, where it has existed for the past decade.

"This will undoubtedly be tough for the sport," said Carol Anne Letheren,
the Canadian association's chief. "There's always great sadness and
embarrassment."

Only four positive drug tests have ever been recorded at the Winter
Olympics -two at Innsbruck in 1976, one in Sarajevo in 1984 and one in
Calgary in 1988. For Canada, this is also sadly reminiscent of Seoul in
Summer 1988, when Toronto sprinter Ben Johnson lost his gold medal and
world record for using the anabolic steroid stanozolol.

IOC officials said no gold medalist since Johnson has been disqualified for
drug use. And no gold medalist was ever disqualified for drugs before 1988,
when several weightlifting champions were banned for steroid use just days
before Johnson's disqualification.

Letheren said Rebagliati told officials the positive test was due to "the
significant amount of time that Ross spends in an environment where he is
exposed to marijuana." She said a severe reprimand would have been more
appropriate than taking back his medal.

IOC Director General Francois Carrard said the first part of the two-part
drug test found traces of metabolized marijuana in Rebagliati's urine. The
second part turned up more signs of marijuana use -17.8 nanograms per
milliliter, Carrard said. That meant Rebagliati, a British Columbian whose
triumph was celebrated throughout Canada, was out in the narrowest of
votes.

"It is always sad to be facing such a situation," Carrard said. "It was not
an easy decision to take."

He refused to go into detail about the decision-making process, citing
Canada's appeal. But he did say the IOC board vote was 3/2, with two
members abstaining. The medical commission vote was 13 -12 in favor of
recommending action to the IOC governing body. The IOC also could have
reprimanded Rebagliati but allowed him to keep his medal.

"It was an unusually close decision," Carrard said. International ski
federation rules allow 15 nanograms per milliliter; the IOC allows none.
The fact that Rebagliati's levels tested above 15 "did have a certain
influence on the debate," Carrard said. The Committee for the Arbitration
of Sport, which must rule within 24 hours, has overturned drug cases
before.

Rebagliati declined comment tonight as he arrived at the Nagano hotel where
the committee was meeting.

Carrard said he had no indication Rebagliati used the drug in Japan. But
Kyodo News reported that police from Nagano prefecture, or province, will
ask the IOC for Rebagliati's test results. A marijuana possession
conviction in Japan carries up to seven years in prison.

Rebagliati, who dedicated his Olympic medal to a friend killed in an
avalanche, said after winning the gold that he realized his sport had
reached Olympic status when drug testers began appearing at meets. He said
performance-enhancing drugs "were not part of our sport." But though
snowboarders acknowledge their sport's freewheeling reputation, they say
illegal drug use is hardly the rule.

"I wouldn't say that every other snowboarder is out there puffing a joint,"
said Michael Wood, the Canadian snowboarding team's leader. "I don't think
it's more prevalent in snowboarding than it is in any other sport."

And Rob Roy, a coach for the U.S. snowboarding team, said the sport was
"striving for legitimacy" and could be hurt by what happened today. "I
think the public sort of looks at this and thinks, `Ah -snowboarders are
all wild and crazy," he said. "That's not good."

Marijuana has long been on the IOC list of banned drugs, but Carrard said
he had no memory of the drug ever appearing before at the Olympics. "There
are no cases which are similar," Carrard said.

Other substances banned by the IOC include alcohol, caffeine, local
anesthetics and performance-enhancing steroids. Though marijuana is not
traditionally considered performance-enhancing, Carrard said he had been
"told that in some situations, it could be."

In another drug case, U.S. bobsledder Michael Dionne was pulled from the
Olympic team after his drug suspension was upheld but was urged to stay in
Nagano because he was guilty only of "carelessness." Dionne said he took
the banned stimulant ephedrine accidentally in cold medicine.