The International Association of Athletics Federations will announce today that it has officially suspended the Greek sprinters Kostas Kederis and Ekaterina Thanou.
A three-man commission, including the IAAF's president Lamine Diack, held a teleconference on Monday and decided the pair should be charged after missing a series of drugs tests in Tel Aviv, Chicago and Athens before the Olympic Games.
The failure of Kederis, the 200m champion from the Sydney 2000 Olympics, and Thanou, the 100m silver medallist at the same games, to submit to drug tests in Athens and their claims of being involved in a motorcycle crash after which they spent four days in hospital led to both withdrawing from the games.
The sprinters will now have 14 days in which to respond to the IAAF and indicate whether they will request personal hearings before the Greek federation. If they are found guilty they could face bans of up to two years.
Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, the athletes' lawyer, has signalled that Kederis and Thanou will fight any attempts to ban them, claiming they have passed 50 drugs tests during their careers. "We will exhaust all the means available under the law," he said.
Kederis and Thanou are also facing the threat of jail in Greece, where the authorities have charged them with missing the drug test in Athens and faking the accident.
In all, eight criminal charges have been brought against the athletes, their former coach Christos Tzekos, eyewitnesses of the motorcycle incident and seven hospital doctors.
Tzekos has also been charged by the IAAF with distributing and assisting in the use of prohibited substances and tampering with the doping control process. He had been given until midnight last night to provide an explanation.
Kelly Holmes will return to the track in the new year with a series of races on home soil. The Olympic 800m and 1500m champion will make her first appearance on a British track since Athens at the Norwich Union International match in Glasgow on January 29.
She will also compete at the Norwich Union Grand Prix in Birmingham on February 18.
"It has been such a hectic time since Athens and since I last raced at the end of the summer," said Holmes. "It's been great fun but I'm an athlete and running is what I do - I can't wait to get back on to the track."
Holmes' indoor season could also include the defence of her indoor AAA 800m title at the European Trials in Sheffield on February 12 and 13.
"I am still competitive," added Holmes. "These events are also a great opportunity to thank the British public for the enormous levels of support they have given me from the moment I stepped off that plane from Greece."
