Michael Phelps Disqualified from Olympics
Aug 17, 2008, 08:45
BEIJING -- United States swimming star Michael Phelps has been disqualified from the Beijing Olympics, the International Olympic Committee announced today. The move, which strips Phelps of the eight gold medals he won in Beijing, threatens to cast a pall over his record-breaking performance.
IOC President, Jacques Rogge, announced the unprecedented decision following a determination that Phelps, 23, had used "performance enhancements" in all of his swimming competitions during the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.
International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies gave this explanation to the decision.
"We had thought that his biceps and triceps looked unusually large, but he had passed all the standard doping tests, and there was no evidence of pharmaceutically based performance enhancements. Still we felt that appearance alone merited further investigation," said Davies.
"As we continued to look, what we discovered was that Phelps has been wearing water wings, also called floaties, floaters, arm bands, or swimmies—inflatable upper-arm devices traditionally used to help wearers float in water and to assist young swimmers in learning to swim. Phelps had worn them during both the qualifying heats and in medal rounds of all of his Olympic swimming events," Davies added.
"This had passed without notice because Phelps apparently has been using flesh-colored devices and had been slowly increasing the inflation over several years," said Davies.
The investigation continues as officials try to determine what gas Phelps used to inflate the devices. The current suspicion is helium.
With his disqualification and the revocation of his medals, Phelps’ bid to surpass U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz's record-setting total of seven gold medals in a single Olympics ended.
As a consequence of the IOC action, the United States gold medal count dropped by almost half as China took a commanding first-place lead in the overall medal contest.
