So, the sound of a sledgehammer cracking a nut reverberated around the pool at the European Championships this morning as a LEN disciplinary hearing decided to bar Milorad Cavic, of Serbia, from further individual swims at the 2008 championships in Eindhoven. His 'crime was to wear a t-shirt declaring that 'Kosovo is Serbia' (in his own language) when on the podium collecting his gold for thde 50m butterfly, in a European record of 23.11. Passions run deep on the issue in the Balkans.

Cavic's ambition of racing inside 51.7sec in the 100m is now denied to him - at least for the here and now. As we said yesetrday - a letter of protest was received from an unnamed party. It was believed that the letter came from a country involved in the dispute. In fact, it was not a letter of protest at all. it was a report from Erik van Heijningen,
 President of the Organizing Committee and the Royal Dutch Swimming Federation, noting LEN that the incident had taken place and that the actions of Cavic broke Rule 15 governing 'safety and security' at the championships

Cavic had to stand during the playing of his national anthem with the wrong flag flying over his head, according to the Serbians. Van Heijningen told Dutch reporters here that he was unaware that the wrong flag had been used. He said he had been afraid that Cavic's action would spark a chain-reactiom. 'This is a place of sport, not political protest.'

As more details of the case emerged, it was revealed that Cavic had attended the disciplinary panel of LEN, some members of which had to be flown into Eindhoven especially for the hearing last night.

Cavic - coached by Mike Bottom (former 4x100m free world record holder for the USA), and born in Anaheim, California - was unwise to make his political protest on the podium instead of outside the pool. But to remove a champion from the event borders on overreaction. LEN would have done well to leave the matter at the 7,000 euros fine imposed on the Serbian federation and issue the swimmer with a warning. Far more people will now be aware of Cavic's protest than they would have been before he was banned.

The swimmer, based at Islamorada, Florida, is held up as an example of what can result from the breaking of rules. Serbia, of course, believes that Cavic has done nothing more than state the truth as they see it: Kosovo is part of Serbia. The LEN penalty was condemned by Serbian Sports Minister Snezana Sarmardzic-Markovic, who said: 'It's a scandalous decision. it is a great injustice.' Cavic, she said, had simply related a fact of political geography. Others disagree, of course. Cavic himself described his ban as being 'like the death penalty'.

Van Heijningen said it was irrelevant whether Cavic's protest was truthful or not. The rules do not allow political protests. LEN had no option but to impose a penalty, partly in order not to set precedent in the pool.

A great pity then that it chose never to highlight the crime of 97 out of 108 gold medals at European Championships for East German women between 1973 and 1989 on a diet of Oral Turinabol. If revisiting results was too much for the federation to contemplate (and promotion of others who reached the podium or got close to it during the 1970s and 1980s would surely leave dubious results on the record), then surely now would be the time for a token gesture that would go some way to acknowledging the crimes of the GDR. As late as 1992, Dr Lothar Kipke, then member of FINA and LEN medical commissions and a man honoured with federation prizes, sat on a platform at a LEN sports medicine symposium in Stockholm.

By then, the first evidence was pouring out of a set of Stasi files stocked with proof that the entire GDR results book was a lie, and that Kipke was among the chief criminals at the helm of State Plan 14:25, a man who spent two decades sticking needles full of steroids and other substances into the rears and arms of swimmers, some as young as 12. Kipke was convicted in a German court of bodily harm. It is well past the time when those who govern European and world swimming (and that often means the same men and women) stripped Kipke and others of his ilk of any prizes and honours won at a time when they were working tirelessly to bring the sport into disrepute as they abused generations of young athletes. Kipke's dark work knocks Cavic's indiscretion into a cocked hat - with the force of a cannon and a following wind.

Understandable as LEN's latest decision may be, it fails to recognise the perception of double-standards and has all the hallmarks of a body that deals with swimmers that are easily dealt with but steers clear of the difficult decisions it should have made many years ago. Where are the asterisks beside every GDR result in the history of LEN. They are invisible, of course. But we all know that they are there.