Swimming coach ends up in deep water
One of the national swimming team’s coaches, Haralambos Papanikolaou, and the squad’s physician, Manolis Kandris, both former champion athletes, as well as first cousins, face charges of fraud, bodily harm and doping after the father of a young team member filed a suit against the men in reaction to his son’s failure to pass a doping test at the recent Mediterranean Games, which led to a lifetime suspension. A public prosecutor laid the charges yesterday after the father of 18-year-old swimmer Vassilis Demetis filed a suit alleging that the two men had intravenously administered two illegal substances, Actovesin and Neodon, hoping to rake in a profit. Everybody can do as they please to make an impression, remarked Papanikolaou. Kandris said he would file a countersuit for defamation. We don’t want to be left open to criticism, Sgouros underlined, adding that he would ask for the European Championships to be held at a later date, perhaps December 2003.
