The Olympic Games have been to Hellas and back in recent times and, four years after the scandal of the phantom motorcycle crash, the bizarre case of Ekaterini Thanou drags on. The IOC does not want the sprinter in Beijing, but it faces a multimillion-pound lawsuit if it bars her. The saga took another twist last night, when Thanou reported Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, to its own ethics commission.

With drugs high on the agenda of every acronym from Wada to the IOC, Thanou’s case remaining unresolved, almost four years to the day that the saga began, is an acute embarrassment for the Olympics. The IOC has said that it will adopt a “new procedure” to prevent her from starting her campaign on August 16. The Greek sprinter has responded with talk of a violation of her human rights.

Yesterday, the IOC disciplinary commission met to discuss what to do about the 33-year-old. “The commission will make a recommendation to the executive board, which will meet next week,” Emmanuelle Moreau, of the IOC, said. With the first round of the 100 metres eight days away, Thanou is in limbo and angry that the IOC has claimed that she has brought the Olympic Movement into disrepute.

An already extraordinary tale plunged deeper into controversy last night when HellenicAthletes.com reported that Thanou had filed a complaint with the IOC ethics commission, an independent body that makes recommendations to the executive board. The website reported that the complaint had been filed against Rogge and the IOC vice-presidents, Thomas Bach and Lambis Nikolaou, and stated that there was no legal basis for a review of her case because the athlete had come to an agreement with the IAAF, athletics’ governing body. Thanou, who had missed three drugs tests in the summer of 2004, served her two-year ban and has been free to compete since December 2006.

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The story of Thanou and Konstantinos Kenteris was one of the most bizarre in Olympic history. They missed that third drugs test on the eve of the opening ceremony in Athens, where they were billed as gold-medal prospects, but they had a belter of an excuse. The Greek pair claimed that they had been seriously hurt in a motorcycle accident as they raced back to the Olympic Village for the test. The hospital even issued a statement confirming that the injuries included open leg wounds, whiplash and cranial trauma. The police, however, said that there were no marks on the road where the accident allegedly happened.

The case grew more convoluted by the day. Seven doctors were accused of lying. Kenteris and Thanou left hospital together and, after appearing before an IOC tribunal a week into the Games, surrendered their Olympic accreditation. Three days later, the police stated that the Greeks had staged the crash. Their perjury trial, after several delays, has finally been set for next February.

The IOC claims that it has the right to review the eligibility of Thanou. Her British-based lawyer, Dr Gregory Ioannidis, stated that the facts relied upon by the IOC in reopening the case were “arbitrary, biased, capricious and discriminatory”. Thanou has also claimed that she was threatened by IOC officials when she gave up her accreditation at the Athens Hilton.

Thanou plans to arrive in Beijing on Wednesday. “There is no official charge against me, so why am I being asked if I want to take part?” she said. It is an almighty mess to be hanging over the Olympics, which begin with their own president being reported to the ethics commission.