Cloud Follows Lewis But Merry Shines

Denise Lewis and Katharine Merry have much in common. They were born and bred in the West Midlands, are members of Birchfield Harriers and were Olympic heroines in Sydney 2000. In addition neither has competed for two years and each decided to make her comeback on the same day.

Merry, on her return from a string of career-threatening injuries following her Olympic 400 metres bronze medal, represented her club in the relay at a British League meeting in Eton on Saturday. Across the Channel the Olympic heptathlon champion Lewis was competing in competitions in Belgium and Holland following a career hiatus to have a baby 14 months ago.

Both had reason to be optimistic but their moods could not have been more different afterwards. While Merry was bubbling with pleasure, a dark cloud hung over Lewis.

Although Lewis managed 13.60sec in the 100 metres hurdles and a long jump of 6.08 metres, there was more interest in her association with Dr Ekkart Arbeit, the architect of East Germany's state-sponsored doping programme in the 1970s and 1980s.

Lewis snapped at the representative of the newspaper that has been her biggest critic. "What you're trying to insinuate is very wrong," she said. "Your paper is trying to discredit me publicly. I'm very surprised and very disappointed."

But she refused to justify her choice beyond saying that what her new coach did "happened a long time ago". The controversial coach, who also spied for the Stasi, was not present on Saturday.

Yesterday Lewis competed in her second meeting of the weekend in Sittard, where she again showed encouraging signs with a throw of 15.43m in the shot. She was left disappointed, however, with her 200m effort which finished the wrong side of 25 seconds.

The atmosphere was far less strained at Eton where Merry ran 52.2sec to anchor Birchfield to a British League 4x400m relay record of 3min 34.56sec. Despite the advice of her coach Linford Christie to postpone her comeback further, Merry's performance will now see her named in Britain's relay team for the European Cup in Florence this weekend.

Geoff Capes is backing Carl Myerscough's appeal to be allowed to compete in the 2004 Olympics in Athens after he broke his 23-year-old British record in the shot.

Myerscough threw 21.92m to win the National Collegiate Athletic Association in Sacramento, California on Saturday, adding 24cm to the mark set by Capes in 1980.

But he is currently ineligible to compete in the games, having served a two-year suspension for testing positive for anabolic steroids in 1999. Myerscough says he was the victim of sabotage and is appealing against the ban, which Capes believes to be unfair.