April 16, 2008	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 9, 1429

ATHENS, April 15: Former Olympic weightlifter Christos Konstantinidis has accused suspended national coach Christos Iacovou of giving banned substances to athletes, a court official said on Monday.

Konstantinidis, who represented Greece at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, was giving evidence to a judicial investigation set up to look into a recent doping scandal in which 11 members of the 14-member national weightlifting team tested positive for the anabolic steroid methyltrienolone.

He told prosecutor Andreas Karaflos that Iacovou, who has been suspended by the Greek Weightlifting Federation pending the outcome of the case, had pressed him to take banned substances in 1997.

“The former athlete told the prosecutor that Iacovou had urged him to take banned substances and that when he refused he found himself off the national team,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Konstantinidis made identical claims in 1997 but was then forced to sign an apology for fear of losing his job with the police.

The court official said Konstantinidis told the prosecutor that despite signing the apology 11 years ago, he had never retracted his comments.—Reuters