Sat, May 22, 2004 page18

• US Olympic team in biggest doping scandal in history

  • THE GUARDIAN
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  The US Olympic team on Thursday found itself engulfed in the biggest doping scandal in history, one that is threatening to ruin the reputations of some of the world's best-known competitors and cast a long, dark cloud over the games in Athens this summer.

  Athletics has been warned to brace itself for the release of even more damaging revelations after the disgraced American sprinter, Kelli White, said she would turn whistleblower to help anti-doping officials catch the team-mates she believes also used drugs.

  It is estimated that up to a dozen leading Americans may ultimately be banned and prevented from representing their country in Athens.

  "Clearly the US want to get the people behind this, get to the network of doping that's going on," said Nick Davies, spokesman for the International Association of Athletics Federations.

  So concerned are government officials that White may suffer reprisals that they have offered her round-the-clock protection if she wants it.

  "The US attorney's office has informed us they consider this a very serious matter, and will respond immediately if her safety is threatened or compromised in any way," said Jerrold Colton, her lawyer.

  The news that White had been suspended for two years and stripped of her 100m and 200m world championship gold medals she won in Paris last August after admitting using banned drugs to the US anti-doping agency, has sent shudders through the athletics community.

  In the first case of its kind, White, 27, was suspended without first testing positive. Normally an athlete is only banned after providing a urine or blood sample analysis that is examined scientifically and discovered to include traces of a banned substance.

  But White admitted using steroids and a blood-boosting agent after being confronted with documents that proved she had been using drugs.

  "It's a very significant event and it marks a new avenue for being able to fight drug misuse in sport because armed with the evidence we don't even need a positive test," Michele Verroken, Britain's former anti-doping chief, said on Thursday.

  Evidence of White's drug use was obtained, in part, by the US anti-doping agency from documents turned over by the Senate commerce committee after an investigation by the US justice department into the San Francisco-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (Balco).

  Balco is allegedly the laboratory that provided a banned designer anabolic steroid that led to Britain's Dwain Chambers, the European 100m champion and record holder, testing positive last August and incurring a two-year suspension.

  The laboratory is at the center of a federal steroid investigation that has so far resulted in the indictments of four men, including the Balco founder and owner Victor Conte and the Ukrainian-born Remi Korchemny, who coached both Chambers and White, on steroid distribution charges.

  As part of the US investigation into Balco, several prominent Olympians, including White, Marion Jones, the winner of a record five medals in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, including three gold, and her partner, the 100m world-record holder Tim Montgomery, were among those to testify before a federal grand jury in November.

  Jones and Montgomery have repeatedly denied using banned substances and Jones has threatened to sue if an attempt is made to keep her out of the Olympics without a failed drug test. If Jones's name is linked with banned drugs, she stands to lose millions in endorsements and appearance fees.

  Until recently, the US had a reputation for being soft on drugs and was often criticized by international officials for its lax interpretation of the rules.

  But since the anti-doping agency was set up in 2000 the US has become increasingly zealous. Officials feared that if they did not crack down before Athens they might suffer a positive drug bust on the scale of the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson's in 1988.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    First person arrested as Danjiang Bridge opens

  • 2

    TSMC shares stumble on report, but losses minor

  • 3

    Navy needs 12 subs for modern fleet: CSBC head

  • 4

    Police identify man who engaged in indecency at park

  • 5

    HIMARS to be deployed to islands