The Associated Press

GENEVA – The International Olympic Committee stripped German freestyle wrestler Alexander Leipold of his Olympic gold medal Monday after he failed a drug test.

Monday, October 23, 2000

GENEVA – The International Olympic Committee stripped German freestyle wrestler Alexander Leipold of his Olympic gold medal Monday after he failed a drug test.

The gold will now go to the silver medalist, Brandon Slay, of Amarillo, Texas, who lost 4-0 to Leipold in the final of the 167 1/2-pound division. South Korea’s Moon Eui Jae would move up from the bronze medal to silver, while Turkey’s Adem Bereket would go from fourth to third.

In a written statement, the IOC executive committee said it had ordered the German Olympic Committee to ”withdraw and return” Leipold’s gold medal for the men’s 167 1/2-pound category.

Leipold was found to have used the steroid nandrolone. A test showed levels 10 times the maximum permitted under IOC rules.

Leipold appeared last week at a hearing of the IOC medical commission, which was investigating two positive drug cases in wrestling from the final weekend of the Sydney Games. The medical commission recommended that Leipold be stripped of his medal.

Leipold is the third athlete from the Sydney Olympics to lose a gold medal for a doping offense.

The IOC executive committee also decided to officially exclude Mongolian wrestler Oyunbileg Purevbaatar, who was found to have used the diuretic furosemide after finishing fifth in the 127 3/4-pound class.

Five athletes were stripped of medals in Sydney, including two gold medalists.

Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan lost her all-around gold after testing positive for pseudoephedrine, apparently from cold pills, while Bulgarian women’s weightlifter Izabela Dragneva had her gold taken away after her urine sample showed traces of furosemide.

Two men’s Bulgarian weightlifters lost silver and bronze medals after testing positive for furosemide, and an Armenian weightlifter was stripped of a bronze for nandrolone.

The two wrestling cases brought to 11 the number of positive tests reported by the IOC during the Sydney Games – nine from in-competition drug controls and two from out-of-competition screening.

The 11 positives are the most at an Olympics since 12 were recorded at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.