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Gatlin to contest eight year doping ban

Thursday, August 24, 2006

by: Allan Kelly

WASHINGTON, USA (AFP): Disgraced sprint king Justin Gatlin is to contest the eight-year ban he received for doping and hopes to be back in action "as soon as possible", his lawyers said on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old World and Olympic champion was sanctioned by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Tuesday after accepting that he had failed a dope test for the second time in his career.

He also vouched to help the USADA in its battle against drug-taking in the sport and thus avoided a lifetime ban which normally follows a second violation of the ever-stricter anti-doping laws.

Whilst he cannot now contest the validity of the April test which he failed, Gatlin can ask the USADA for the eight-year ban to be reduced on the grounds that he did not knowingly take the drugs.

"USADA has announced the sanction it intends to seek, but Justin has not accepted that recommendation and will proceed to arbitration," Gatlin's lawyer Cameron Myler told AFP.

"He will argue that 'exceptional circumstances' existed in this situation that justify a significantly better result than eight years.

"Our goal is to have Justin back on track running as soon as possible."

Gatlin, who also forfeited his share of the 9.77secs 100metres world record by accepting the result of the drugs test, has six months to put his case for the eight-year ban to be reduced.

His lawyers did not say what their strategy would be, but the sprinter's controversial coach Trevor Graham claimed that the infraction had been due to the revenge actions of a masseur who applied testosterone cream on him without his knowledge.

The masseur has strenuously denied that claim and Gatlin's legal team at the time said Graham had spoken without their authority.

The test that produced the positive result came just weeks before Gatlin matched Asafa Powell's 100m world record of 9.77sec at a meeting in Doha.

Gatlin is among an elite group of athletes - including Americans Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene and Canadian Donovan Bailey - to hold the world and Olympic titles along with the world record.

In addition to his 100m gold, he earned Olympic bronze in the 200m and a silver in the 4x100m relay in 2004.

Last year in Helsinki he added the 100m world title and also captured the 200m crown.

With his performance in Doha, he was briefly credited with sole possession of the coveted world record with a time of 9.76sec, but the time was later officially revised to 9.77 - tying the mark Powell set in Athens on June 14, 2005.

He had been scheduled to run a series of highly lucrative head-to-heads with Powell this summer, but for various financial and personal reasons they never managed to appear at the same meeting.

The USADA statement said that the ban on Gatlin would begin on August 15, 2006 and end "with credit given since the time Gatlin began serving a provisional suspension on July 25" on July 24 2014.

All his results subsequent to the failed test on April 22, including his world record run in May, will be scrapped, it added.US press reports quoted Gatlin's lawyers as saying that they would ask for the ban to be reduced to as little as two years.

Even if that were successful he would still be unable to run at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as it would not clear him in time for the US trials earlier in the year.

It would also have to meet the regulations of the sport's world governing body, International Athletics Federation (IAAF).

That organisation's spokesman Nick Davies told the BBC that the IAAF wanted to know the exact details of "how the drugs got there and see if it leads to other convictions."

"We would accept eight years or even less in that case - but four years would be the minimum."

Meanwhile, British Olympic legend Daley Thompson on Wednesday pleaded for Gatlin to reveal who supplied him with performance-enhancing drugs for the good of the sport.

Thompson, the 1980 and 1984 decathlon Olympic champion who set the world record four times, said it would be a "travesty" if Gatlin was ever allowed back on an athletics track.

"I would expect him to own up and to whistle blow on those who supplied him with drugs irrespective of any deal on offer," said Thompson, whose 1984 Olympics score of 8847 points was a world record that stood for nine years and an Olympic record for 20 years.

"It would be great if he did one honourable act before leaving the sport. Personally I think it would be a travesty if Justin Gatlin was ever allowed back on the track.

"It appears that he has wilfully defrauded the public, sponsors and the media for many years and has paraded himself as the new, clean, drug-free hero of the sport.

"I feel he should never be allowed back into top level athletics."

Gatlin had painted himself as a role model for the anti-doping movement, despite a positive test for an amphetamine in 2001.

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