The Electronic Telegraph Friday 3 August 2001 Tom Knight OLYMPIC champion Denise Lewis is facing World Championship heartache here as she was forced to pull out of training with a stomach complaint yesterday. Her chances of competing in the heptathlon were put at only 50-50 by her coach, Charles van Commenee. Lewis is one of Britain's best hopes at the Games after taking the world by storm to strike gold at last year's Olympics in Sydney. However, her Dutch coach appeared at a press conference in her absence yesterday and said: "Denise has been suffering from a stomach problem since yesterday and at this point it is hard to say what will happen. She is ill and her chances of competing are 50-50. She will probably not be able to make a decision until Saturday morning. "Denise has to feel good enough to compete and we shall see on the day, but right now she is vomiting and has a stomach ache. She has had problems with her stomach for years and some days are worse than others. She has seen the team doctors here and the best thing for her now is to simply stay in bed." Van Commenee said that although Lewis had suffered from similar problems in the past, he did not remember them coming so close to a major championship. A change of name could not prevent the world governing body running into the same old problems yesterday. Despite protests from their biggest members, the renamed International Association of Athletics Federations - they have finally dropped the word, 'Amateur' from their title - successfully steered their new rule on false starts through congress. By a vote of 81 to 74, the IAAF Congress decided that, as from Jan 1, 2003, in all races up to 400 metres, only one false start by a single athlete will be allowed. After that, any athlete guilty of a false start will be disqualified. The present rule states that every athlete is allowed one false start. Originally, the IAAF's ruling council considered having no false starts at all, the system used in swimming. The new rule is therefore an untried compromise. This most radical change in the rules seen for decades left delegates from Britain, the United States and Germany shaking their heads in disbelief and Europe's top meeting promoters accused the IAAF of not listening to the athletes. Svein Arne Hansen, who organises the Bislett Games in Oslo, said: "Those guys have never organised a thing in their lives. They did not listen to what athletes have been telling them." David Moorcroft, the chief executive of UK Athletics, said: "The bigger nations and meeting promoters asked for more time but clearly were not listened to. Athletes will just have to get used to it and we have to help them, whether we like it or not." Craig Masback, the chief executive of USA Track and Field, claimed the worst athletes had been handed an advantage. "The new rule offers a bizarre incentive for the slowest athletes in the field to take a false start in order to hold the others back." The championships, which begin tonight with the opening ceremony and men's marathon, were hit by another doping controversy when Poland withdrew Marcin Krzywanski from the 100m and Rajmund Kolko from the javelin after both tested positive at their national trials. Eamonn Condon www.RunnersGoal.com
