ATHENS -- Greek javelin champion Anna Verouli, who failed to qualify for the final of her Olympic event and was found to have used anabolic steroids, Sunday denied she had taken any drugs and said she was ready to fly back to Los Angeles for another test.
'They should send me back to America.
There must have been some mistake, I am 100 percent clean,' Verouli said in an interview published in the daily newspaper Ethnos. 'The government has to protect me. They should send me back to Los Angeles. I should not be condemned like that. How could I be doped and throw only 58 meters?'
Verouli, who won the bronze medal at last year's world championships and had thrown more than 70 meters this season, also accused the officials during the qualifying round of the women's javelin at Los Angeles of being unfair.
'They carried out a war of nerves against me,' she said.
Verouli, Greece's one hope for a medal in the Olympic track and field competition, failed to qualify for the javelin final and returned to Athens on Thursday.
She was asked before leaving Los Angeles to pass a sex control and a doping test. The test, according to reports from Los Angeles, showed traces of banned anabolic steroid drugs in her system.
