Róbert Fazekas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Róbert Fazekas (born August 18, 1975 in Szombathely) is a Hungarian discus thrower, who won gold in the 2002 European Championships and silver in the 2003 World Championship. He finished first in the 2004 Summer Olympics, but was later disqualified for failing to provide a drug sample, and the gold medal was awarded to Virgilijus Alekna. Fazekas ranks fifth in all-time longest discus throw distances with a personal best of 71.70m.

As regards the drug sample, there were at the time a number of suspicions and allegations that were never pursued or substantiated. The actual case involved failure to produce a sufficiently large urine sample. Fazekas left the doping station despite being informed of this would be constued a doping offense[1]. He also refused transfer to the Polyclinic in the Olympic Village where medical treatment was available and where he could have continued the urine sample collection.

The circumstances suggest that he might suffer from a marginal form of Paruresis, a legitimate and documented condition which renders the individual unable to urinate under certain conditions, particularly under observation. Enquiries to WADA reveal that their doping codes do not cater for the condition at all and they say they have never had any reports of problems with it. This condition has never been shown to prevent any athlete from participating in sports or from giving adequate urine samples for doping controls. If an athlete cannot immediately supply the volume of urine necessary for doping controls (75 milliliters), The International Olympic Committee does have contingency plans for waiting under supervision until the athlete can produce the needed volume of urine (which all humans with normally functioning kidneys are capable of doing).

[edit] Achievements

Year Tournament Venue Result Extra
1998 European Championships Budapest, Hungary 4th
1999 World Championships Seville, Spain 11th
2002 European Championships Budapest, Hungary 1st
2003 World Championships Paris, France 2nd
World Athletics Final Monte Carlo, Monaco 2nd

[edit] References

Discus champion loses gold. BBC article. Retrieved on January 21, 2006.


In other languages