Cycling: Effect on team key to Peden decision

By KEVIN NORQUAY

ATHENS - New Zealand Olympic team officials debated whether disgraced track cyclist Anthony Peden should come to Athens, deciding it would be too disruptive, chef de mission Dave Currie said yesterday.

Peden withdrew from the team after claiming to have inadvertently taken a banned drug.

He flew from France to his home in Newcastle, New South Wales, on Saturday - ending a dramatic series of events which began last month when he visited a doctor in Germany to receive treatment for ongoing back and leg pain.

Peden told the New Zealand Olympic Committee he was prescribed Triamcinoline, a cortisone-type drug which has no performance-enhancing properties but which is on the banned list for in-competition under World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) regulations.

Currie said the prospect of Peden coming to Athens was discussed.

"We debated it a bit," Currie said.

"It was about not letting it have an impact, or any more impact on the team than was necessary."

If Peden had gone to Athens and then been forced to leave, "that would have been pretty negative".

Peden took triamcinoline between July 19 and 28, but Currie was unclear of the exact date.

Because of language difficulties with the German doctor, Peden told the NZ Olympic Committee he was unaware that the administered product would still be in his body by the start of the in-competition testing period on August 1.

He said he was also not advised by the doctor of a need to apply to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and International Cycling Federation for a therapeutic-use exemption.

Peden, 33, advised New Zealand team medical staff of his plight last Monday. Team management applied to the IOC for a retrospective exemption, but this was declined.

Peden then made an individual appeal to Wada but was turned down.

Currie said there was no reason not to believe Peden. Staff had seen the doctor's notes and prescriptions, which backed up the cyclist's story, and had used them as part of their appeal to an IOC medical panel.

Peden is a former Australian representative who switched allegiances in 1998 after being ignored by the Australian selectors.

- NZPA