The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has turned down a last-ditch
request from the coaches of Ghanaian skeleton racer Akwasi Frimpong
for continental quota places to be reinstated for the Beijing 2022
Winter Olympics.
Urgent calls are being made for the reinstatement of continental quota
spots in bobsleigh and skeleton amid concerns that there will be no
African racers at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
again and they re like, oh, yeah, we made a mistake, they re not held accountable and i don t get a sorry, i don t even get acknowledgement, and that s hard. reporter: seeking a fresh start, lund shaved his head, and while he no longer struggles with his outward appearance, he s had plenty of internal battles. it s the first time in my life i felt depression. i never understood what that was until after i was kicked out of the olympics and my dream was taken away from me for a technicality. i ve struggled with it even to this day of trying to get a good edge here and deal with it. reporter: lund will be back at the olympics in vancouver. he ll be ready again for the danger and the depression, hoping that overcoming one can defeat the other and hoping the dream that seemed dashed in torino was only a dream deferred. mark mckay live in vancouver this morning. that beautiful background once again. all right, so the competition is halfway over.
seeking redemption at the olympic games. oh, yeah, a gold medal wouldn t be bad either. an american athlete banned for vanity now back to try again. cnn s mark mckay has the story. reporter: zach lund knows the danger of throwing his body head-first down an icy slope, but he wasn t prepared for the peril when it was his reputation sliding away four years ago. i knew the whole time i wasn t a cheater. i know that i was an honest athlete. my family knew it, my friends knew it, most of the people around me knew that i wouldn t do anything, that i wasn t cheating with steroids or anything like that. reporter: the u.s. skeleton racer had just settled into the olympic village in torino when he was banned from the games,
sent home for testing positive for a common hair growth stimulant prescribed by doctors that at the time anti-doping officials believed masked steroids. he was obviously devastated not to be able to compete, but it was really frustrating because of the misinformation that he had had. everyone is like you fought really hard to compete in the olympics. i said, no, i fought really hard to clear my name. the competition was second after that, you know. what s your name worth. we all tried to help and support and get it known out there that he was not a cheater, he did not do steroids. reporter: lund insisted the only performance he was trying to enhance was that of his hairline. still, he served a one-year ban from the sport after a court appeal failed. then two years later the world anti-doping agency removed it from the ban list. i paid my sentence, i did my time, and now that it s legal