1998: Sport's Year Of Shame

January

8 - Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan arrested at Sydney airport attempting to smuggle 13 vials of human growth hormone to the World Swimming Championships in Perth. Her coach Zhou Zhewen admits planting the drugs and is later handed a 15-year suspension by the international swimming body, FINA.

14 - Four Chinese swimmers are thrown out of the World Championships in Perth for testing positive for the banned diuretic triamterene (a masking agent) during an out-of-competition test held before the championships started.

15 - Berlin prosecutors continue to handle more than 90 cases against doctors and coaches who carried out systematic doping on as many as 10,000 East German athletes during the previous two decades.

21 - Charlton defender Jamie Stuart is suspended for an additional three months at an English Football Association (FA) hearing following a positive test for cocaine and marijuana at the training ground on November 17th.

27 - Three jockeys - Jamie Osborne, Leighton Aspell and Dean Gallagher - arrested by Scotland Yard police on charges of doping two horses and other incidents of race-fixing.

February

11 - Canadian snowboarding champion Ross Rebagliati has his gold medal taken back at the Winter Olympics in Nagano following a positive test for marijuana. The giant slalom winner showed a presence of 17.8 parts per million of cannabis metabolite, just above the 15 p.p.m. threshold set by the International Ski Federation, but is reinstated a day later following appeal to the independent sports court for arbitration.

23 - West Bromwich Albion defender Shane Nicholson faces disciplinary hearing with the FA after refusing a drugs test at the club's training ground.

April

7 - British shot-putter Paul Edwards is given a lifetime ban after failing a drug test for the third time in three years at an out-of-competition test the previous June.

21 - Snooker player Ronnie O'Sullivan notified of positive test for cannabis during Irish Masters tournament which he won on March 29th.

29 - FINA, the international swimming body, charge Michelle de Bruin with manipulating a sample in an out-of-competition test at her home on January 10th.

May

8 - Swiss cyclist Mauro Gianetti is rushed to hospital during Tour of Romandy suffering from gastroenteritis, later revealed to be caused by abuse of experimental drug perfluorocarbon (PFC).

June

6 - A single Chinese athlete, hurdler Zhou Jing, tests positive during the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) out-of-competition tests in the country and is given a two-year suspension. Two other athletes, Croatian Miljenko Vukovic and American Lisa Knoblich are also given two-year suspensions.

7- Swiss triathlete Olivier Bernhard tests positive for androstenedione after winning the Duathlon World Championships and is later given a year's suspension by the Swiss federation.

July

8 - Belgian masseur Willy Voet of the Swiss Festina cycling team is arrested on the France/Belgium border carrying 400 vials of illegal growth hormones, steroids and masking agents. Voet was heading to the port of Calais and on to Dublin for the start of the 1998 Tour de France.

15 - Director of the Festina team Bruno Roussel is arrested during the Tour under France's anti-drug laws and his admission that drugs were supplied "under strict medical control" leads to the disqualification of the Swiss team two days later.

26 - International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch tells Spanish newspaper El Mundo that the list of banned drugs must be slashed and harmless substances should not be prohibited.

27 - IAAF announces the indefinite suspensions of American sprinter Dennis Mitchell and shotputter Randy Barnes for failing outof-competition drug tests on April 1st. Mitchell tested positive for an excessive ratio of epitestosterone to testosterone and Barnes for the controversial androstenedione, known as "andro" and legal in some sports.

29 - Tour de France stage stops twice as riders protest over allegations and their treatment following the drugs scandal which has plagued the 1998 race.

August

1 - Presidents of the IOC, Juan Samaranch, and IAAF, Primo Nebiola, both call for world conference to examine the growing problem of drug abuse in sport.

2 - Only 14 of the original 21 teams finish the Tour de France in Paris after the three-week race is over-shadowed by widespread drug accusations.

6 - FINA announce a four-year ban on Michelle de Bruin for the manipulation of a sample during a test in January.

7 - Italian World Cup star Alessandro Del Piero begins legal action against Roma's coach Zdenek Zeman over allegations by the coach that he may have used performance-enhancing drugs.

19 - Spanish Olympic committee call for resignation of Prince Alexandre de Merode, chief of the IOC anti-doping committee, after he accused the Spanish of a lax approach to the crackdown on drugs

September

6 - Senior officials of the Rugby Football Union (RFU) admit that players in the top two divisions of the Allied Dunbar Premiership have virtually no chance of being tested for banned substances.

8 - American baseball star Mark McGwire of the St Louis Cardinals hits a record-breaking 62nd home run of the season. McGwire freely admitted to using adrostenedione in his preparations, currently permitted in Major League baseball.

9 - Reports that Festina cyclists Laurent Brochard and Richard Virenque admit to taking banned substances are published in French newspapers.

18 - Calls are made for new research into colostrum (found in breast milk) after it emerged the product was being used by the Australian cycling team at the Commonwealth Games.

21 - American sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner dies at her Los Angeles home due to heart seizure aged 38. "Flo-Jo" won a sprint double at the 1988 Olympics and retired immediately afterwards amid rumours of steroid abuse.

30 - Swiss cyclist Alex Zulle banned for eight months by his federation for EPO abuse this summer.

October

2 - Tests taken on 24 Parma soccer players on July 27th are only now reported to have abnormally high levels of red blood cells following news that the top laboratory at Acqua Acetosa had tested only a fraction of the 4,000 samples sent there for analysis, which caused the resignation of Italian Olympic president Mario Pescante.

4 - Sunday Tribune article by former Irish international Neil Francis suggests drug abuse among Irish rugby players during the last decade.

6 - UK Sports Council announce positive tests by two Irish rugby players last season.

7 - Three-time Boston Marathon winner Uta Pippig is suspended by the German Athletic Federation after testing positive for unnatural levels of testosterone following a routine test last April.

9 - IRFU disclose that three Irish players tested positive for drugs last season, one believed to be during the Five Nations Championship.