ATHENS, Aug 20 (AFP) - Greek bronze-medal weightlifter Leonidas Sampanis, who won the first medal of the Olympics for the Games hosts, has tested positive for a banned drug, Greek television station Mega reported here Friday.
Sampanis won a bronze medal on Monday in the men's 62-kg category. He and his coach, Christos Iakovou, denied all charges, according to the channel.
Yiannis Papadoyiannakis, the chief of Greece's Olympic team, returned to the Olympic athletes village, the station reported, after being notified that an "A" sample from Sampanis tested positive.
"Papadoyiannakis is in the Olympic village, I don't know what his schedule had been, but he has not received any official notification yet," said Yiorgos Gakis, spokesman of Greece's Hellenic Committee HOC.
Sampanis, originally an ethnic Greek from Albania, won Olympic silver medals in 1996 at Atlanta and 2000 in Sydney.
Born in Korce, Albania, in 1971, Sampanis settled in Greece in 1993 and is a major in the Greek Air Force.
Greece is still recovering from the Olympic absence of sprint stars Kostadinos Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou, who withdrew Wednesday from the Games after failing to show up at a doping test on August 12.
Two members of Greece's Olympic baseball team were banned before the Olympics began for using banned substances. Both were Americans of Greek heritage.