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Former
Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou received suspended
jail sentences for staging a motorcycle crash to avoid a doping test
before the 2004 Athens Olympics, court officials said on Tuesday.

The Sydney 2000
Olympic medallists and their coach Christos Tzekos were accused of
staging a crash on the eve of their home Games.

Kenteris, 37 and Thanou, 36, were each sentenced to 31 months in jail as the much delayed trial finally came to a conclusion.

“The crash never happened,” one of the judges said.

Tzekos, the only one of the trio present in court, was sentenced to 33 months in jail.

Two witnesses who
gave testimonies were sentenced to seven and 15 months in jail
respectively while the doctors who testified received sentences of
between six and eight months.

All the sentences
were suspended pending appeals. Court officials said all the guilty
parties intended to appeal, adding that the appeals would be heard
within 10 days.

Big scandal

The trial, which
took years to start after frequent postponements, began in January and
suffered several delays due to the absence of witnesses.

Kenteris, the 200
metres gold medallist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and 100 metres
silver medallist Thanou were acquitted of doping charges in a Greek
athletics federation probe in 2005.

The International
Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) appealed the verdict at the
Court of Arbitration for Sport. They settled out of court in 2006 and
subsequently admitted only to anti-doping rule violations, essentially
serving out their unofficial two-year suspensions.

The 2004 scandal, widely regarded as the biggest at an Olympics
since Canadian Ben Johnson lost his 100 metres gold medal in Seoul in
1988 after a positive doping test, cast a huge cloud over the Athens
Games for the host country.

REUTERS