Dodgy result in dope blame game

Javier Sotomayor

Cheats' top excuses

Justin Gatlin, US sprinter, testosterone: His coach, Trevor Graham, claimed a masseuse with a grudge rubbed a testosterone cream into Gatlin's legs.

Dieter Baumann, German 5,000m runner, nandrolone: claimed someone spiked his toothpaste.

Shane Warne, Australian spinner, diuretic: claimed his mum gave it to him so he'd look less fat on TV. "It was to get rid of a double chin."

Tyler Hamilton, American cyclist, blood doping: claimed foreign cells in his blood were due to "vanishing twin" syndrome, a hitherto unknown twin who died before birth.

Petr Korda, Czech tennis star: blamed his positive test at Wimbledon in 1998 on eating too much nandrolone-fattened veal.

Javier Sotomayor, Cuban high jumper, cocaine in 1999: claimed he had been set-up by the CIA and Cuban-American Mafia, saying: "I've only seen that substance in the movies."

Ben Johnson, Canadian sprinter: stripped of Seoul Olympic 100m gold after testing positive for the steroid stanozolol: claimed his sasparilla-and-ginseng energy drink was spiked.

Larissa Lazutina, Russian cross-country skier: lost her 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic gold medal after testing positive to endurance-booster darbepoetin, a relative of EPO. "I put it down to female physiology."

Raimondas Rumsas, first Lithuanian cyclist to finish on the podium of the Tour de France when third in 2002: Police stopped his wife, Edita, on her way home from the race. In a cooler they found EPO, human growth hormone, steroids, testosterone, corticoids. Rumsas claimed she was carrying them for his mother-in-law, Yackstenia. "It is a misunderstanding. If there is anything else to this it is a mystery to me." A journalist jested that perhaps Yackstenia was preparing to ride the tour.

Dennis Mitchell, US sprinter, high level of testosterone, 1998: one sleepless night, five beers, four bouts of sex.

Frank Vandenbroucke, cyclist, once Belgium's big Tour de France hope: banned in 2003 after steroids found in his refrigerator. Vandenbroucke's vet claimed it was for the cyclist's dog.

Floyd Landis, US cyclist: won the Tour de France last month, but drug test returned testosterone level three times the limit allowed and indicated presence of synthetic testosterone. Claimed high level was natural, caused by beers and Jack Daniels, dehydration, laboratory malpractice, thyroid medicine, cortisone shots.

Best recent quote by an anti-doping figure

"It taught me that people lie. When they're caught, they lie." World Anti-Doping Agency chairman Richard Pound, who represented fellow Canadian Ben Johnson in front of the IOC after the sprinter's 1988 positive. Pound said both Johnson and his coach, Charlie Francis, initially insisted they had not doped.