Belgian minister won't apologise

January 18, 2005 17:44 IST

The Belgian minister at the centre of a scandal over a doping test of Russia's US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova refused on Tuesday to apologise for announcing she had tested positive.

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"I will never offer an apology," Claude Eerdekens, sports minister for the regional government of the French-speaking community, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Late on Monday, Eerdekens issued a statement saying that Kuznetsova had tested positive for ephedrine in a doping test at an exhibition tournament held in the country last December.

The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) later cleared her of any offence because the drug was not banned when taken out of competition.

WTA Chief Executive Larry Scott has demanded an apology from Eerdekens for wrongly accusing Kuznetsova of taking a banned drug.

But Eerdekens said he would do not such a thing.

"If this is the conception of sport at the highest level ... there is something rotten in the world of sport," he said.

Source: REUTERS
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