BUENOS AIRES, Oct 11: Laxity over anti-doping rules has landed a stream of Argentine tennis players in hot water. A two-year ban imposed on Guillermo Canas in August and last week’s case of Mariano Puerta, who faces the first lifetime suspension in tennis if found guilty of what would be a second offence, have cast a shadow over the successes of the “Argentine Armada”.

“The only negligence I admit to is that of not having checked what I was taking,” Canas told Reuters in a recent interview.

Canas tested positive for the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide (HCT) at the Acapulco tournament in Mexico in February. He has appealed to the Swiss-based Court for Arbitration in Sport (CAS).

He was world number 10 at the time of his suspension in August.

Canas’s physical trainer Fernando Cao was quoted by L’Equipe as saying: “We are Latins. So we have a different personality from Europeans or Americans.

“We tend to take rules lightly. So we take less care than others. But that’s not an excuse, quite the contrary. We have to be more responsible and not leave things to chance.

“In Guillermo’s case, we, his entourage, have clearly made a mistake.”

Puerta, banned for nine months after testing positive for clenbuterol in a tournament in Chile in 2003, is the current number 10.

He reached the final at Roland Garros in June after which he tested positive for a stimulant, the French daily L’Equipe reported last week.

The Argentine, whose physical trainer was former Olympic weightlifter Dario Lecman, denies knowingly taking a banned substance. He said he had taken anti-inflammatory tablets given to him by a doctor for a sore leg.

Doctor Nestor Lentini, who is attached to the Argentine government’s Sports Secretariat, was critical of Puerta, saying: “A sportsman has to know what he can and can’t take.

“A final like Roland Garros is too important and a sporstman who gets to that stage needs to be well informed.”

Other Argentines who have faced suspensions include world number eight Guillermo Coria, who served a seven-month ban after testing positive for nandrolone in 2001. He was later absolved when he was found to have taken a contaminated supplement.

Juan Ignacio Chela was suspended for three months in 2001 for taking a steroid and doubles player Mariano Hood is awaiting judgement after testing positive at Roland Garros for a hair-loss substance banned since November 2004 as a masking agent.

The Argentine Tennis Association (AAT) has blamed a lack of funds for the failure to address the problem.

Former national technical director Fernando Segal said: “We didn’t have the budget to look after these problems.

“Technically we are among the best countries in the world in producing players but scientifically we’re in the third world.”

All these cases, following on from soccer great Diego Maradona’s two infamous positive doping tests in the 1990s, have put Argentine sport under a cloud.

Maradona was banned from soccer for 15 months in 1991 while playing for Napoli in Italy and again with Argentina at the 1994 World Cup in the United States, when he declared after being kicked out of the tournament: “My legs have been cut off”.

“For some time we Argentines have been looked at with different eyes,” said Juan Monaco, who lost the Casablanca final to Puerta in April.

Coria said: “Today, we Argentines are all suspected. Our effort isn’t taken into account. We have to do even more to prove we are great players.”

Puerta’s manager Jorge Brasero said: “It must bother people that Argentina should have the world’s number eight, nine, 10 and 11.” Coria, David Nalbandian, Puerta and 2004 French Open winner Gaston Gaudio occupy those positions this week.

Former Argentine tennis professional Horacio de la Pena said something had to be done to address the problem.

“It’s ridiculous to say that people are pointing their fingers at us; they’re doing so because real things are happening and it’s our fault,” he said.—Reuters