Hungary stars revolt against national federation
BUDAPEST: A revolt against Hungary's national swimming federation led by Olympic champion Katinka Hosszu gathered steam Thursday as top swimmers joined her protest over the body's handling of the sport.
Hosszu, who won three gold medals and a silver in Rio and holds multiple world records, blamed the head of the Hungarian Swimming Federation (MUSZ) Tamas Gyarfas for poor training conditions for swimmers and coaches including decrepit facilities in an open letter posted on her Facebook page Tuesday.
She also accused Gyarfas of administrating the sport in an undemocratic manner.
"If Hungarian swimming is in fact important for Tamas Gyarfas...he should resign from his post," said Hosszu.
Her stance has been publically backed by other top swimmers including Daniel Gyurta, gold medal-winner at the 2012 Olympic Games, and Boglarka Kapas, who won a bronze in Rio.
"Unfortunately things really aren't in order in Hungarian swimming, and it's time to talk openly about it," Kapas said in a statement to the Nemzeti Sport daily newspaper Wednesday.
On Thursday Olympic swimmers David and Evelyn Verraszto, Peter Bernek, and Dominik Kozma also joined the protest.
Gyarfas has refused to resign so far while federation officials have called for dialogue and asked the swimmers to come up with a list of specific demands.
The Hungarian capital Budapest is scheduled to host the World Swimming Championships in 2017. - AFP LAUSANNE: Sixteen athletes, including ten medallists, were on Thursday disqualified by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for doping at the 2008 Beijing Games.
The ten medallists who competed in weightlifting, wrestling and athletics were all found to have taken banned substances after retesting of samples.
They included three silver medal winners -- Russian Khasan Baroev and Azeri Vitaliy Rahimov in Greco-Roman wrestling and Kazah weightlifter Irina Nekrassova.
The seven bronze medallists included four weightlifters -Russians Khadzhimurat Akkaev (+94 kg) and Dmitry Lapikov (+105), Ukrainian Natalya Davydova (+69) and Kazak Mariya Grabovetskaya (+75), Greco-Roman wrestler Asset Mambetov of Kazakhstan, Ukrainian pole vaulter Denys Yurchenko and Greek triple jumper Chrysopigi Devetzi.
The six others disqualified were weightlifters and athletes from Russia, Azerbaidjan, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
The IOC have re-tested over 1,243 samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics based on improved techniques.
The build-up to the 2016 Rio Games was overshadowed after a report found evidence of a statesponsored doping programme in Russian sport.
Russia narrowly escaped a blanket ban from Rio when the IOC left it up to international sports federations to determine which Russians were eligible to compete while granting itself a final say. - AFP