Belarus chief thrown out after drugs breach

Belarus's Winter Olympics team chief Yaroslav Barichko has been thrown out of the Games after one of his athletes failed to turn up for an out-of-competition test.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) director general Francois Carrard told a news conference the Belarus Olympic Committee and all financial support from the Olympic solidarity fund had been suspended until December 31, 2002.

Carrard said the unidentified athlete had not turned up for a scheduled out-of-competition test on Monday and Barichko had also not attended a meeting with IOC officials, although expressly invited by IOC president Jacques Rogge.

"During the morning the athlete disappeared," he said. "We know the athlete had been in contact with the chef de mission asking permission to leave the Games.

"We knew very well that there had been exchanges between the athlete and the chef de mission."

The athlete was summoned for a further test because of a breakdown in the testing procedures after an earlier random test. An IOC statement said a bag containing the athlete's urine sample had not been properly sealed.

IOC medical committee director Patrick Schamasch confirmed the test had been possible and Carrard added it had been for a level of the anabolic steroid nandrolone 380 times over the acceptable limit.

Carrard said no other samples in the bag had been positive and there had been no wilful interference.

The missing athlete is now suspended pending a hearing.

"I don't think testing is very valuable at this stage because of the elapsed time," Carrard said. "We want to know exactly the circumstances of that, for us, very strange departure."

Carrard said he did not know where the athlete was now.

"We don't know because we were told the Belarus delegation did not know," he said. "I have an impression, and we might be wrong, that the athlete might not be very far from here."