Sprinters want arbitrator removed from doping case
TURIN (Reuters) – Sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou have filed a motion to remove a Court of Arbitration for Sport arbitrator from their hearing set for February 22 because of conflict of interest, their lawyer said yesterday. The move could further delay the Lausanne-based court’s final ruling on their alleged doping violations at the Athens Olympics. «We have launched a motion to get Yves Fortier off the case because of conflict of interest,» the sprinters’ lawyer Grigoris Ioannidis told Reuters. «His associate [Stephen Drymer] at the law firm has worked for the World Anti-Doping Agency [WADA].» WADA and the International Association of Athletics Federations were enraged by the sprinters’ acquittal last March by a Greek disciplinary committee. WADA chief Dick Pound had threatened to appeal the decision if the IAAF did not do so itself.
