Michael Johnson and the rest of the US 1,600m relay team can keep their gold medals from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, sport's highest court ruled Thursday.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld an appeal from the US Olympic Committee challenging moves to disqualify the entire squad for an earlier doping infraction by team member Jerome Young.
The court ruled that only Young should be stripped of the medal, meaning Johnson, Antonio Pettigrew, twins Alvin and Calvin Harrison and Angelo Taylor keep their golds.
Young ran in the opening and semifinal rounds in Sydney, but not in the final. Johnson ran the anchor leg in the final for the fifth and last Olympic gold medal of his career. Pettigrew and the Harrisons also ran in the final. Taylor ran in the earlier heats.
Young tested positive for the steroid nandrolone in 1999, but was exonerated by a US appeals panel in July 2000, avoiding a two-year ban.
USA Track & Field never gave the sport's world governing body specifics about the case, citing confidentiality rules in place at the time. Young's identity only became public in 2003.
The International Association of Athletics Federations ruled that the entire team should forfeit the victory because Young should have been ineligible to compete.
The arbitration court ruled yesterday that the IAAF's rules in place at the time of the Sydney Games did not call for an entire team to be disqualified.
"The panel decided that on the basis of the IAAF rules applicable at the time of the Sydney Games, the results of the men's 4x400m relay event at the Sydney Games should not be amended and that only Jerome Young in the US team should be stripped of his gold medal," CAS said in a statement.
The panel noted that the IAAF's current rules do call for an entire relay team to be disqualified in a similar event.
"The IAAF is extremely disappointed with this decision," IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said.
"Last July our council, in the best interest of our sport, decided that the results of the 4x400-meter final in Sydney should be changed because the USA fielded an ineligible athlete in the early rounds. This athlete, Jerome Young, was later suspended for life for a second serious doping offense. CAS, however, has decided that the council was wrong. We regret this but we accept also that CAS decisions are final and binding," Davies said.
Had the court rejected the USOC appeal, the International Olympic Committee would have been in position to upgrade Nigeria to the gold, Jamaica to silver and the Bahamas to bronze. Yesterday's ruling means there will be no change in the medals.
Young, the 2003 world champion in the 400 meters, was banned for life last year by the US Anti-Doping Agency following a second doping offense. He tested positive for EPO at a Paris meet in July last year.
Last October, Alvin Harrison was suspended for four years for doping violations uncovered in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation. Calvin Harrison is serving a two-year suspension for testing positive for drugs linked to BALCO.
It's now up to the IOC executive board to formally strip Young of the medal. The board's next full meeting is in October.
IOC president Jacques Rogge has repeatedly pressed for full disclosure in the case, and the committee had been prepared to take all the medals away.
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