Jonathan Edwards has an identity problem. That man on the television and in the papers, the triple jumper who has been staggering rivals and statisticians with his prodigious performances this season – can it really be himself?

Frankly, Edwards is finding it hard to believe “It is difficult to take in,” he said. How do they really expect us to place any reliance on a sample they refused to re-seal?”Modahl is still seeking an explanation for the federation’s action in cancelling a third test on the sample in Lisbon two days before it was due to go ahead on 22 June this year.The IAAF council meets in Gothenburg next week before the World Championships, and it is expected that the Modahl case will be discussed, even though it is not on the official agenda.It is expected that, sooner or later, the IAAF will review the case through their arbitration panel, which is likely to reimpose the original four- year ban.. This sample has been ruined by bacteriological action.”He said that after witnessing the test on the B sample at the Lisbon laboratory on 30 August 1994, he asked for his wife’s sample to be re- sealed in his presence, but that his request was flatly turned down.”The sample was open on the table between us from 10 in the morning until six in the evening,” he said “It must have been contaminated even further in that time. “We are not really worried about it because it is so absurd.” As well as questioning the basis on which such a test could be conducted, he indicated that he and his wife no longer believed that the remains of her sample could indicate anything significant given the deterioration which had occurred in a variety of conditions.On Wednesday a British Athletic Federation panel overturned a four-year drugs ban on the 1990 Commonwealth 800 metres champion after accepting that the high levels of the male sex hormone detected in Modahl’s sample could have resulted from bacteriological activity during unrefrigerated storage.Gyulai said that an unprecedented third test on Modahl’s sample was “a possibility.” He added: “We are told by scientists that another analysis would clearly show whether the elevated levels were caused by heat or had been in the body.”Modahl responded: “They are very clever if they can.

Istvan Gyulai, the IAAF general secretary, said yesterday that the proposed test would clearly show whether the levels had been caused by heat or were already in the urine from Modahl’s body.
“We find it quite incredible that they want to do this thing,” Modahl said. Vicente Modahl has reacted with incredulity to news that the International Amateur Athletic Federation plans to conduct a third test on the urine sample given by his wife, Diane, to a Portuguese laboratory last year. One athlete who tested positive for diuretics had no action taken against him by his governing body.A total of 4,374 samples were collected in 50 sports The bill came to pounds 907,000.. There were seven positives in rugby league, three involving Australian players, and five positives in athletics, three of them for stimulants. Most of the footballers were either warned or assessed for rehabilitation.Michele Verroken, head of the doping control unit, said: “The findings reflect the change in emphasis in testing in certain sports. Football has taken on this responsibility and we are looking for things there which we would not be looking for in other sports.”The report revealed 67 positives, up from 43 in the previous 12 months. But 13 of those were for anabolic steroid offences carrying long bans.

Training ground testing resulted in 13 positive findings in 1994-95, according to the annual report of the Sports Council’s doping control service.
Eight of those linked players to marijuana, four to stimulants and one to narcotic use Only powerlifting produced more positives – 16. “But he is now in Yorkshire’s hands and it is up to them to deal with him.”. Football’s crackdown on wayward young professionals has contributed to a big increase in the number of positive drug tests in British sport. Morton added that Gough will be miss at least two Championship games.
That absence certainly rules him out of the fifth Test at Trent Bridge on 10 August and he is unlikely to be fit for The Oval two weeks later.”Obviously it’s disappointing for us and Darren,” Raymond Illingworth, the England chairman of selectors, said last night. “The scan revealed some inflammation in two joints and a stress reaction in the fourth bone,” Wayne Morton, the Yorkshire physiotherapist, said.