Cycling: Biddle injustice to fore again

For 30 years Bruce Biddle has told questioners that he finished fourth in the cycling road race at the Munich Olympics.

It is true, but it is also false - and the New Zealand Olympic Committee hopes to set the record straight with IOC president Jacques Rogge. Rogge is in New Zealand until Saturday and will attend functions at Parliament and Government House, as well as touring Team New Zealand's headquarters before he sails with Alinghi in tomorrow's Louis Vuitton races.

But the former Belgium test rugby player, who also sailed in three Olympic yachting regattas, will also be asked to correct what is seen as a 30-year injustice to Biddle.

The former New Zealand cyclist finished fourth in the road race at the 1972 Olympics, but was promoted to third after Spain's Jaime Huelamo failed a drugs test.

However, Biddle was not awarded the bronze medal because he was never tested for drugs, despite offering himself to the drug testers.

In those days only the top three finishers and three randomly selected competitors were tested, so Biddle's offer was rejected.

The NZOC will ask Rogge to see that Biddle, who has lived in Pisa, Italy, for 25 years, receives his medal.

Rogge will hold media conferences in Wellington today and in Auckland tomorrow where he is certain to be asked about the IOC's positions on several sports important to New Zealand.

At last month's IOC meeting in Mexico a committee decided to postpone until after the 2004 Olympics in Athens decisions on whether softball, baseball and modern pentathlon should be dropped from the Olympics.

Three-day eventing was also going to be cut from the equestrian programme, race walking culled from athletics and either Greco or freestyle wrestling chopped from that sport. Decisions on whether rugby sevens and golf would be brought in were also postponed.

Three-day eventing faces the cut because of the expense of staging the event and the amount of land required.

Golf is being pushed because it is easy to understand, but the best players would have to make themselves available.

- NZPA