SYDNEY, Australia — High jumping, in the pharmaceutical sense of the term, was the topic of discussion Sunday at Olympic Stadium after Cuba's Javier Sotomayor completed the most unlikely leap of his 15-year career:
Busted for cocaine in 1999, Olympic silver medalist in 2000.
Sotomayor, the only man to clear 8 feet in the high jump, was banned from competition for two years by the International Amateur Athletic Federation after testing positive for cocaine at the Pan American Games in August 1999.
The ban was supposed to have kept Sotomayor out of the Sydney Games, but after a year of legal haggling, the IAAF, in a remarkable move, essentially gave Sotomayor time off for good behavior--cutting the suspension in half because of "exceptional circumstances," citing Sotomayor's long and exemplary career.
That made Sotomayor Olympic-eligible again and, despite charges of a subsequent positive test for the same drug, Sotomayor took his place in the men's Olympic high jump finals and eventually took second place--behind Russia's Sergei Kliugin, the only competitor here to clear 7 feet 8 1/2 inches.
And that turned the medalists' news conference, which should have been Kliugin's chance to bask in the spotlight, into an interrogation that should have been conducted in a smoke-filled room with a bare light bulb glaring in Sotomayor's face.
First question: What kind of message did Sotomayor think the commuting of his sentence, which resulted in an Olympic silver medal, sent to young people around the world?
"The suspension, I think the whole matter should have never reached the level it reached," Sotomayor replied through an interpreter. "That was a matter that could have been taken care of more quickly. For a year this has affected me, affected me greatly.
"As for a message to young people, I would tell them to always play fair and clean. The difference between athletes should be only the physical differences between them."
Sweden's Stefan Holm, however, received a different sort of message. Holm finished fourth in the high jump final, clearing the same height as Sotomayor--7-7 1/4--but placed lower in the standings because he had more misses.
Without Sotomayor's presence, Holm figured he'd be heading back to Sweden in possession of a bronze medal. He told reporters in the mixed zone that he believed Sotomayor should not have been allowed to compete.
