Olympics: Compensation Now Thanou's Quest After Ban From Beijing

The disgraced Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou yesterday said she would not appeal against the IOC's decision banning her from the Beijing Games, after the IOC's executive board ruled that the Sydney 100m silver medalist had brought the Olympic movement into disrepute. She has also been barred from attending the Games in any capacity. Thanou had been entered to compete in the 100m in Beijing.

One of Thanou's lawyers, Nikos Kollias, said the sprinter would not file an appeal. "We will not appeal her participation in the Games. What matters now is Katerina's compensation," said Kollias.

Thanou fled from the Athens Olympic Village on the eve of the Games four years ago after drug testers arrived to see her and her team-mate Kostas Kenteris, overshadowing the start of their home Olympics.

"The executive board took the decision this morning to declare Ms Thanou ineligible to compete in the Beijing Games, and ... also took the decision in their own right to send a firm signal of the moral case that this has brought the Olympic movement into disrepute," said the IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies yesterday.

Thanou and Kenteris were expected to be among the stars of the Athens Games, but their controversial exit from the Olympic Village, and their subsequent claim that they had been injured in a motorcycle accident that meant they were hospitalized beyond the reach of dope testers, was a national scandal.

"These events resulted in a scandalous saga that overshadowed the Athens Games and brought the Olympic movement and the IOC into disrepute," said Davies. She said she was unaware whether the Hellenic Olympic Commission would appeal the decision.

The IOC's disciplinary case against Thanou had been in abeyance since Athens, but as soon as she declared her intention to run in Beijing a hearing was fixed. The disciplinary commission met on Thursday and passed its recommendations to the executive board yesterday.

Thanou has already said she will sue the IOC and its president, Jacques Rogge, if she is not officially awarded the gold medal from the Sydney Games as a result of Marion Jones being stripped of the gold following her admission that she used drugs. In a statement, Thanou said the IOC's decision was "arbitrary and illegal".

"It is these totalitarian practices and decisions that bring the sporting spirit and the Olympic ideal that my country gave birth to into disrepute," Thanou said.