Greek hurdles champ Halkia fails test

BEIJING (Reuters) - Greece's defending Olympic women's 400 meters hurdles champion Fani Halkia has failed a drugs test and could face immediate sanction from the IOC.

"Halkia tested positive for drugs," one official told Reuters on Sunday on condition of anonymity.

The official said the athlete had been tested a day before boarding the plane to Japan and that test was negative so any banned substance was introduced in her body in Japan.

The IOC said on Sunday it could take action against Halkia even before her B sample was tested.

"The IOC does not necessarily have to wait for the results of the B sample," an IOC official told Reuters. "The A sample is enough for the IOC to act."

It was not clear whether the IOC's disciplinary committee would convene later on Sunday.

The Greek hurdler saw her A sample test positive for methyltrienolone, better known as M3, a banned steroid, and said she was shocked by the news, denying any wrongdoing.

The Greek Olympic Committee had said earlier on Sunday, hours before Halkia was due to start competing at the Beijing Games, that she had tested positive for a banned substance around August 10 at a training camp in Japan.

Halkia, who has since been ordered out of the athletes' village and was planning to return to Greece, denied she had taken performance-enhancing drugs, saying she was clean and expected to be tested during the August 8-24 Games.

"I can't believe it ... When I was told I tested positive I thought it was a joke," Halkia told Greek reporters in Beijing.

"I am shocked because in the past months I have been tested frequently and I was expecting to be tested here," Halkia said.

"I am saddened by the fact that I cannot serve my country. I cannot accept that there may be sick minds out there who would sabotage me. I will give all nutritional supplements, my vitamins, for testing," she said.

SURPRISE WINNER

The 29-year-old Halkia, who is an officer in the Greek air force and a board member of the prestigious Greek Olympic champions' club, was a surprise winner in the 400 meters hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics but has rarely raced since then.

The first round of the women's 400 meters hurdles is scheduled for Sunday evening, with the final on Aug 20.

The reputation of Greek sport was seriously damaged on the eve of the Athens Olympics when two medals hopes, sprinters Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou, missed a drugs test and withdrew amid a whirlwind of negative publicity.

Thanou, a 100 meters silver medalist in Sydney in 2000, was also barred from competing in Beijing because of her involvement in the Athens doping scandal.

A long list of Greek athletes have so far failed tests over the past few months, including 11 weightlifters, a swimmer, a rower and Dimitris Regas, a runner who shares the same coach as Halkia. Most of them tested positive for M3.

One of them, sprinter Tassos Gousis, was sent home from the training camp in Japan after he failed a Greek doping agency test days before he was due to compete.

Before Sunday, only three athletes had tested positive out of more than 2,200 tests after six days of competition.

The Greek Olympic Committee, alarmed by the number of positive cases, had pledged before the Games to test every team member at least twice to avoid more embarrassment.

(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison and Karolos Grohmann, Editing by Jon Bramley)