Spain's gold-winning basketball players have been ordered to hand back their medals because most of them have no disability.

They beat Russia in the Sydney final, but an inquiry by the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE) found 10 out of 12 players have no mental handicap.

The CPE have ordered them to send back their gold medals which will now go to the Russians.

Dmitry Rymkin, vice-president of the Russian Paralympic Committee, said: "I'm very happy for all our guys because aside from turning silver into gold, the players will become $3,000 richer.

"Our government has paid $2,000 for a silver medal, but the gold should yield a $5,000 bonus, and for a handicapped athlete in our country that's a substantial help."

Surprised

The scandal has prompted the resignation of Fernando Martin Vicente as vice-president of the CPE and president of the Spanish Federation for Mentally Handicapped Sports (FEDDI).

Vicente also headed the International Federation for Mentally Handicapped Sports (INAS-FID).

Marcos Laborde, a coach of the Paralympic team, and Enrique Castro, a member of the gold medal-winning squad, have also become victims with the disgraced Spanish team.

Both have quit their posts with the Madrid-based Estudiantes side who play in the Spanish professional basketball league, the club announced on Saturday.

Igor Kopylov, who was in charge of Russia's basketball team in Sydney, said he had been surprised by the developments.

"After the competition there were no protests from anyone, so the whole thing is a bit surprising, although we suspected some discrepancy with the members of the Spanish team," he said.

"As far as individual skills and physical attributes like players' height, both teams were pretty much evenly matched.

"But tactically they were much better than us, which can only suggest one thing - they had good mental capacity.

"We lost by 24 points and although we tried our best to make it a close game, we couldn't. They would bring back their top players from the bench and easily pulled away from us."