Published On:Monday, August 24, 2009

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

THREE Bahamian athletics stars were locked up and interrogated by police over a bottle-throwing incident at a Berlin nightclub.

Leevan "Superman" Sands, Shamar Sands and Donald Thomas spent 11 hours in cells early yesterday morning before being released.

The trio, along with American 400 hurdler Bershawn "Batman" Jackson, Cuban triple jump bronze medalist Alexis Copello and decathlon silver medalist Leonel Suarez, were also arrested after a scuffle took place at the Havana Disco.

Thomas, the former world champion who got eliminated in the preliminaries on Wednesday, was reportedly beaten and handcuffed, while the others were sprayed with mace as they tried to flee the mayhem.

Sprinter Adrian Griffith, who ran through to the second round of the men's 100 metres on Saturday, was also a part of the contingent of 20-30 athletes but he had left the club before the police arrived.

The group were detained and questioned from about 5.30 am until they were released at about 4.30 pm. No criminal charges were filed against either one of them, but the police did confirm that the investigation will continue.

Bahamian team manager Ralph McKinney spent the entire time waiting in the police station while the athletes were detained.

The incident has put another damper on the Bahamian team, which had already concluded their participation on Saturday night with bitter-sweet results in the men's 4 x 400 and women's 4 x 100 relays.

But the athletes all claimed they didn't do anything wrong, and that the whole incident was blown out of proportion by the bouncer at the club, who didn't want to allow them entry.

"When we got out of the taxi to go into the club, the bouncer said that we couldn't get in and he started pushing one of the athletes," Thomas said. "The only thing we did was asked why we couldn't get into the club.

"He started to tell us to stop making noise and he started to push one of the athletes when we just tried to ask him why we couldn't get in. That's when people started to get out the way and bottles were thrown from both directions."

In their haste to flee the trouble, 25-year-old Thomas, who relinquished the title he won in 2007 in Osaka, Japan, after he missed making the final of the high jump on Wednesday, was pinned down, beaten and then handcuffed.

Leevan and Shamar Sands, who were taken in to provide evidence, said after what was happening to Thomas they didn't want to abandon their Auburn Connection team-mate.

"We didn't do anything wrong," insisted Leevan Sands, who just celebrated his 28th birthday on Sunday, two days before he finished fourth behind Copello in the triple jump final.

"I just went over to ask them why they were beating him like that and they started to spray the mace on us."

Shamar Sands, the 24-year-old who advanced to the semi-final round of the men's 110 hurdles on Thursday, said the police made it look like the "athletes were the bad guys after they took the side of the bouncer. But we didn't do anything wrong. We just tried to protect Donald from getting beat."

Thomas was scheduled to leave Berlin at 9.30 am, but will have to wait until today before he tries to make his way back to Auburn. Leevan Sands, in the meantime, is heading to the Weltklasse Zurich Golden Gala meet on August 28, the fifth in the six-race series, while Shamar Sands will be competing in Astoria.

Griffith, 25, is expected to head home with the other Bahamian athletes, who are not entered in any meets in Europe. He was a quarter-finalist in the men's 100 metres.

McKinney said it's unfortunate the Bahamas ended the championships the way it did, especially after what transpired with the relay teams on Saturday night.

The Bahamas Amateur Athletic Association released a statement yesterday calling the incident "unfortunate" and said it has started its own investigation.