Rogge has big role to play

De Keeper informed the IOC President straight away that Greek Olympic 200 metres champion Kostas Kenteris and fellow sprinter Katerina Thanou, the Olympic 100m women's silver medallist, had failed to appear for drugs tests at the Olympic village earlier in the day - an offence regarded as serious as a positive test for a banned substance.

The six men studied the anti-doping rules and discussed whether the IOC were on sound legal ground before Rogge decided to set up a disciplinary commission to discuss the case.

Rogge said he would tell IOC vice-president Thomas Bach, the head of the disciplinary commission, that a hearing with the athletes would need to be held this morning. The German was out at an IOC function.

However, there may now be a delay because both sprinters were detained in hospital.

Rogge's meeting was said to have been calm and relaxed and there was certainly no sense of panic.

But a glance at a television set in the hotel lobby revealed a much more dramatic atmosphere in the bars, homes and TV studios across Greece.

Greek TV broke into programmes to report developments. The drama swept the city with some young volunteers bursting into tears at the news.

For Greece, which has come under fire from both the IOC and the international media in the last seven years for dragging its feet over its preparations for the Games, this is a national calamity.

These Games have been troubled since Greek officials sat on their hands because of in-fighting and bureaucracy in the first three years after Athens were awarded the event in September 1997.

The IOC even had to issue Athens an embarrassing public warning in April 2000.

But after a mad rush in the last year, everything appeared to be running smoothly at last. Now it was all going wrong on the eve of the biggest moment in the country's sporting history.

By the time Bach returned to the hotel, Greek team officials were being interviewed live on television and a huge scrum of TV cameras, photographers and reporters was camped on the doorstep of the central Athens Hotel.

The officials said they had made a written appeal to the IOC to give the two athletes more time to undergo tests. This is not the first time, however, that Kenteris, who rarely competes outside major championships, has been involved in controversy over regulations. One IOC member revealed that the Greeks had reacted very defensively and "arrogantly" when the question was asked at a key IOC meeting last year why some of their athletes rarely competed.

The Greeks may find it hard to defend Kenteris now if he is found guilty of avoiding a test.

The drama of the night was far from over, however.

In the early hours of this morning it emerged that Kenteris and Thanou, who are training partners, had been injured in a motorcycle crash shortly after missing the tests and were receiving treatment in hospital.

The crash happened near Glyfada, a southern Athens suburb where the Greek team have their training headquarters.

Kenderis, well known for riding around the busy streets of Athens on a motorcycle, and Thanou were kept in the hospital overnight.

Athletics federation chief Vassilis Sevastis said: "As you will understand their psychological state was not good."

The state of the Greek nation is pretty similiar ahead of tonight's big night.