Charges of Widespread Drug Use Among British Athletes Is Denied

Nigel Cooper, secretary of the British Amateur Athletic Board (BAAB), Sunday defended the nation’s athletes against allegations of widespread drug-taking.

“We have a clean sport,” Cooper said.

He was responding to allegations in an article headlined “Six out of 10 British athletes take drugs,” which appeared in a national newspaper Sunday. The article suggested there is an increasing drug problem because track and field stars now earn big money.

Paul Dickenson, chairman of the International Athletics Club and a former Olympic hammer thrower, was quoted as saying: “Athletes don’t get track and field magazines any more,” he said. “They buy the drug magazines.”

Said Cooper: “It’s all speculation. There are no hard facts to back up the claim. In 10 years of testing hundreds of athletes at all our major meetings there have been only two problem cases.”

Rocky Lockridge retained his World Boxing Assn. junior lightweight title by stopping Kamel Bou Ali of Tunisia in the sixth round of the scheduled 15-rounder at Riva Del Garda, Italy, after Bou Ali’s corner threw in the towel.

Lockridge was in control of the fight from the start. Bou Ali seemed to gain confidence in the third round, but he was knocked down in the fifth.

Less than a minute into the sixth round, Umberto Branchini, Bou Ali’s manager, threw in the towel. Referee Tony Perez then stopped the fight.

Lockridge, 26, of Paterson, N.J., earned $210,000. Bou Ali collected $52,000.

Bou Ali went into the fight with a 17-0-1 record with 10 knockouts, while Lockridge had a 35-3 record with 29 knockouts.

World Cup leader Marc Girardelli sped to victory in the men’s super-giant slalom at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany, to record his seventh win of the season.

The muscular, blond, 21-year-old, who was born in Austria but skis for Luxembourg, brushed aside all opposition to clock 1 minute 34.09 seconds on the 2,220-meter Kreuzeck course.

Second was Andreas Wenzel of Liechtenstein at 1:34.26, followed by West German Hans Stuffer in 1:34.59.

Ben Akers of Sanbornville, N.H., was the best of the American finishers, placing 43rd in 1:37.17. Andy Chambers of Jackson, Wyo., was 46th in 1:37.56, while Bill Johnson of Malibu was disqualified.

Bernhard Lehmann led East Germany to a 1-2 finish in the four-man event at the World Bobsled championships at Cervinia, Italy.

Lehmann, driving the East German I sled, won in an aggregate time of 4 minutes 14.06 seconds for the four runs over the 1.5 kilometer course.

The United States amateur boxing team, rebuilding without its Olympic Games gold medal winners, split 12 matches with the heavily favored Soviet Union at Reno.

The United States scored five victories in a row and appeared to have the competition wrapped up until the Soviet team, which included four winners in the “Alternate Olympics” of 1984, scored decisive victories in the heavyweight matches.

There were three knockouts. Valerey Laptev stopped Derin Allen of Columbus, Ohio, at 1:27 of the second round in their 156-pound bout; Eugene Speed of Washington, D.C., knocked out Vyacheslav Shulepko at 2:28 of the first round of their 119-pound bout, and Nurlan Abdykalykov defeated Victor Levine of Kokomo, Ind., when the referee stopped the 132-pound class bout at 2:10 of the third.

Gaetan Boucher failed in his attempt to better the 1,500-meter speedskating world record, but did set a Canadian record with a time of 1 minute 55.08 seconds at Davos, Switzerland .

Olympic silver-medalist Greg Foster set a world record of 6.30 in the 50-meter high hurdles in a preliminary race at at the Bally Invitational meet at Rosemont, Ill.

The old mark of 6.36 was set by Renaldo Nehemiah.