Two Doping Positives at South American Games

(ATR) Two positive cases were registered in the anti-doping controls of the recent South American Games in Cochabamba, Bolivia.

The president of the Bolivian Olympic Committee (COB), Marco Arze, has confirmed to Around the Rings that both athletes are Bolivian.

One is Carolina Ocampo, a member of the 4 x 100 track and field relay team that won a silver medal during the event. She tested positive for a substance called Acetazolamide which is included in the list of banned diuretics and is also considered a masking agent by the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Ocampo claims that due to a severe headache during the Games, she went to a pharmacy and asked for a pill to counter the effects of the altitude, but, according to her, the medication she bought had the prohibited substance without her knowing it. "It was a mistake to self-medicate," he said.

The second Bolivian athlete who tested positive is Rodrigo Carvajal, a boxer who won a bronze medal at 91 kg category. The substance found in this case is Drostanolone, a steroid from the Dihydrostestoterone group used for performance enhancement.

Carvajal has not yet given publicly his version about his case.

The Bolivian Olympic Committee has told ATR that both athletes had had five days to request the opening of the B test.

ODESUR and the respective international federations have to determine the sanctions both athletes will endure.

The punishment to athletes could include suspension of sports activity between two and four years, the return of medals and other prizes.

During the XI South American Games, held for two weeks last June in Cochabamba, more than 500 samples of urine and blood were sent to the IOC anti-doping laboratory in Havana

Bolivian President Evo Morales had announced prizes of $30,000 for the gold medal, $20,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze to the athletes of the national delegation.

"To carry out a readjustment in the medals table we must first wait for the definitive opinion on the two cases," Marco Arze told ATR.

"For me, these were clearly clean games ... there were only two positive cases among more than 500 controls," the president of ODESUR, Paraguayan Camilo Pérez López-Moreira, told ATR.

Reported by Miguel Hernandez.