February 12, 2003	Wednesday	Zul Hijjah 10, 1423

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LONDON, Feb 11: Shane Warne is the third famous sports personality to make a sudden and ignominious exit from a global tournament for failing a dope test.

Ben Johnson was banished from the 1988 Seoul Olympics after testing positive for steroids following his victory in world record time in the 100 metres final.

Diego Maradona, the finest footballer of his era, was ejected from the 1994 soccer World Cup for taking a variety of stimulants.

Australian leg-spinner Warne, named as one of the five top cricketers of the 20th century by the Wisden almanac, was due to fly home from the cricket World Cup on Tuesday after testing positive for diuretics.

He told a news conference he had never knowingly taken a prohibited substance and did not condone drugs use in “any shape or form”. Diuretics, which help eliminate fluids from the body, can be misused to lose weight rapidly or to mask other drugs by reducing the concentration of urine.

Drug use in track and field, the showpiece of the summer Olympics, reached a peak in the 1980s.

Documents released after the unification of Germany revealed that East German sports authorities pursued a state programme of systematic doping, with spectacular results in athletics and swimming. The Soviet Union also used drugs in sport widely as part of the ideological cold war designed to demonstrate the supremacy of the communist system through success in sport.

One man who noted the success of the communist bloc with more than a passing interest was Canadian sprint coach Charlie Francis.

Convinced that drugs were vital to succeed at the top level, Francis put Johnson on a drugs programme in 1981. Johnson went on to break the world record at the 1987 world championships and produced an even more spectacular effort in Seoul, clocking 9.79 seconds.

News that Johnson had tested positive for the steroid stanozolol sent shock waves throughout the world.

After initially denying taking any banned substance, Johnson produced graphic detail of his drug abuse to a Canadian government inquiry in 1989.

Francis also gave evidence and was banned for life from coaching Canadian athletes.

He re-emerged briefly this year when world 100 metres record holder Tim Montgomery, the only man to run faster than Johnson, and triple Olympic champion Marion Jones admitted they had consulted the Canadian but said they had now parted company.

Maradona inspired Argentina to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico with dazzling individual displays.

But by the time of the 1994 tournament in the United States he was 33, with legs and body battered by generations of cynical defenders determined to thwart his genius.

Initially Maradona had appeared to defy the years with a spectacular goal in Argentina’s opening 4-0 rout of Greece but he fell from grace as suddenly as Johnson when he tested positive for the the stimulant ephedrine and four other related drugs.

Maradona, who had served a previous ban for cocaine, was suspended for 15 months and his international career was effectively ended.—Reuters