Faces jail time: Greek hurdler Fani Halkia charged in Greece with using M3

The Greek M3 scandal continue to wage on. M3 is a rather nasty lover toxic anabolic steroid that showed up in tests for numerous Greek Olympians last summer.   Female Fani Halkia faces time behind bars (ala Marion Jones) for M3 (why do the women go to jail?)  (posts here, here, and here)  To the BBC:

Greek hurdler Fani Halkia could face a two-year jail sentence after a Greek prosecutor charged the former Olympic champion with using banned steroids.

Greek sprinters Tassos Gousis and Dimitris Regas were charged with using the same steroid, methyltrienolone.

Halkia's coach, George Panagiotopoulos, was charged with supplying banned substances and, if convicted, faces up to three years in prison and a fine.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing and will go on trial within a year.

Halkia, the 2004 Olympic women's 400m hurdles champion, was expelled from the Olympics after testing positive just days before she was due to compete in Beijing.

The defendants deny any wrongdoing and will go on trial within a year.

Halkia, the 2004 Olympic women's 400m hurdles champion, was expelled from the Olympics after testing positive just days before she was due to compete in Beijing.

Her 'B' sample came back positive for methyltrienolone, which the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said is a dangerous drug that "may lead to serious consequences to the health of athletes, even threatening their lives".

In August, the IOC rejected Halkia's defence that she had never used the steroid and that her sample had been subject to "acts of tampering by third parties".

Halkia was a relative unknown before winning gold in Athens, where she set a new Olympic record of 52.77 seconds in the semi-finals.

It is interesting that females involved in doping Marion Jones and Halkia went/may go to jail.  The males like Trevor Graham get off rather easily.

 

Comments

[middle aged mid packer]

MJ was done for perjury, no? Essentially the problem is not - primarily - people taking these things (though they might cause health problems and behavioural problems) but that they thereby obtain money & prizes that otherwise would have gone to someone else. ...but does any country yet have effective prosecutions for sports fraud? That's what is needed - people holding the dopers to account. The big meets and races not only asking for their money back, but invoking penalty clauses (and if they don't have penalty clauses then why not?) and suing for damages.