For those of you who missed it, this week's Independent on Sunday follows the
story for the second week running...

Note how the tone has changed now the facts are becoming known and how he has
thrown their 'naive' claim right back in their faces.


HeadLine Inside Lines
Publication Independent on Sunday Date 30/10/2005
Byline by Alan Hubbard Sports Diarist of the Year


Coe asked to intervene in row over canoeing's 'drugs coach'

We reported last week that the hiring of a foreign coach who has advocated
legalising drugs had caused ripples in the waters of British canoeing. It
is becoming more of a maelstrom, as it is now known that the Bulgarian-born
Krassimir Ivanov, whose contract with the Belgian Olympic Committee was not
renewed, has also admitted taking drugs himself as a competitor, though he
claims he was unaware they were performance-enhancing. Those who oppose his
appointment now plan to petition the London Games chief, Lord Coe, and the
British Olympic Association chairman, Lord Moynihan, to press for his
removal. "If UK Sport are serious about their drugs policy he will be
dismissed forthwith," says one club chairman, Dr Allan Bennett. Sometimes
the fulminations of the disaffected elements in the sport should be
swallowed with a swig of salt water, but in this case they may have a point,
as Ivanov's employment in the current anti-drugs climate by the British
Canoe Union seems at best naive and at worst a serious error of judgement.



Allan Bennett
Not a fan of maelstroms

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