ATHENS, Aug 8: A controversy over the participation of Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou in the Beijing Olympics is set to drag into next week after her legal team pulled the International Olympic Committee’s ethics commission into the debate, one of the athlete’s lawyers said on Friday.

The IOC’s disciplinary committee was to make a recommendation on the issue yesterday but will now convene again on August 11, lawyer Nikos Kollias said.

“No decision was taken yesterday [Thursday] so the committee will meet again on Monday,” he said.

Kollias confirmed Greek media reports that her legal team late on Thursday sent a complaint to the IOC’s ethics committee targeting IOC President Jacques Rogge, IOC disciplinary committee chairman Thomas Bach and Greek IOC member Lambis Nikolaou.

Rogge this week insisted the IOC can reject an athlete’s accreditation while Bach added that under its rules the IOC is not obliged to allow Thanou to run.

Nikolaou told Greek reporters that an “aggressive” memo sent by Thanou’s legal team to the IOC — in which the IOC was accused of appearing to have a “personal vendetta” against the athlete — may have harmed her cause.

The IOC insists on examining Thanou’s right to compete in Beijing because of a doping test controversy on the eve of the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

The IOC says it has summoned Thanou regarding charges of “disrepute and prejudice caused to the Olympic Movement” and also over issues regarding an ongoing perjury trial in Greece pertaining to the alleged motorcycle accident.—AFP