The doping investigation against Sydney Olympics 800-meter
champion Nils Schumann and two other German athletes has been
dropped due to insufficient evidence.
The German Athletics Federation announced Friday that the probe
into Schumann, 1997 world women's 4x400 relay champion Grit
Breuerand hurdler Ulrike Urbansky was finished.
None of the athletes tested positive, but they were named during
the court trial of former coach Thomas Springstein, who was
convicted for giving performance-enhancing drugs to a minor he
trained.
The investigation was the first under the federation's "zero
tolerance" policy in which the "barest hint" of the use or
trafficking of banned substances would be investigated without the
need for a positive test.
"We have done everything we can to clear up the case,"
federation president Clemens Prokop said. "The problem is when
there is no positive test, a sports court has to find its own
evidence and can't question witnesses."
(Xinhua News Agency January 13, 2007)