Sprinter’s Ineligibility Won’t Cost U.S. Team

Sprinter Jerome Young’s positive test for steroids in 1999 will not cost the entire U.S. 1,600-meter relay team its gold medals from the 2000 Sydney Games, an international arbitration panel ruled Thursday in a decision that saves the fifth and final gold medal of Michael Johnson’s Olympic career.

The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport, or CAS, decided that the track and field rules in place at the time of the Sydney Olympics do not require the disqualification of an entire relay team if one member of the team ran though he should have been considered ineligible.

The rules of track and field’s governing body, the International Assn. of Athletics Federations, now make plain that in such an event the entire relay team is disqualified. At the time, though, there was simply no provision for what to do in such a case, and the court panel ruled Thursday that it would thus be “legal abracadabra” to disqualify the entire U.S. Sydney 1,600-meter relay team.

The ruling marks the latest turn in a matter that for years has soured relationships between U.S. and international sports authorities, as well as between the U.S. Olympic Committee and USA Track & Field.

The decision Thursday apparently brings the wrangling over the medals to a close. CAS ruled last year that Young ought to be stripped of his; it’s now up to the IOC to formally revoke the medal.

“This decision today means the IOC can now, on this case it has relentlessly pursued for a number of years, take a final decision at the earliest opportunity as regards Jerome Young,” said IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies.

But the action Thursday means that the other five men on the relay team get to keep their medals: Johnson, Antonio Pettigrew, twins Calvin and Alvin Harrison and Angelo Taylor.

The ruling likely portends new challenges and heightened political sensitivities for the USOC in other arenas, especially in dealings overseas.

“They knew he had tested positive and contaminated the relay team and the relay team ought to lose its medals,” said Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency. “The USOC has certainly dodged a bullet.”

Two weeks ago baseball and softball were cut from the Olympic program as of the 2012 Summer Games, underscoring ineffective U.S. influence within Olympic circles.

Over the past two years, in an effort to bolster American influence, the USOC had spent considerable time, energy and money combating a perception that it had been soft on anti-doping issues since the 1980s. But it defended the Sydney 1,600-meter medals, with the exception of Young’s, in large measure because of Johnson’s stature, only to see three of the six members of the relay team tagged with major doping violations during the course of the appeal.

Last November, Young, the 2003 world champion in the 400 meters, was banned for life after testing positive during the summer of 2004 for the banned blood booster EPO, according to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

In October, Alvin Harrison accepted a four-year suspension for multiple doping violations linked to the BALCO investigation. Calvin Harrison last August drew a two-year ban after a positive test in 2003 for the stimulant modafinil.

The USOC said Thursday in a statement that it appreciates the “careful consideration” the CAS panel gave the case, saying the case ought to be viewed narrowly as the “proper application of rules by an international sports federation and the preservation of due process for athletes at the Olympic Games.”

The statement also said, “To view the issues that were addressed in this case as being related to the unacceptable practice of doping would be incorrect.”

Young and Taylor ran in the early rounds of the 1,600-meter relay at the Sydney Games. The finals four, Pettigrew, the Harrison twins and Johnson, running the anchor leg, cruised to victory. Nigeria finished second, Jamaica third, the Bahamas fourth.

It had been widely known at the time of the Sydney Games that a U.S. athlete had tested positive for something before those Olympics but had been cleared to compete.

The athlete’s identity remained secret until Aug. 27, 2003, when The Times identified him as Young. He had tested positive on June 26, 1999, for the banned steroid nandrolone; a USA Track & Field appeals panel, acting in secret, had cleared him to take part at the Sydney Games.

CAS, however, ruled on June 28, 2004, that Young should have been ineligible because of the 1999 test and should be stripped of his medal.

In that ruling, the court left open the question of whether the other runners on the U.S. relay also ought to lose their medals.

The International Assn. of Athletics Federations then recommended on July 18, 2004, that all six U.S. runners should be stripped because Young had taken part. That action prompted the USOC appeal to the Swiss-based sports tribunal.

In its ruling Thursday, the panel referred to an oft-cited aphorism from an earlier CAS decision. It said, quoting with approval, “The fight against doping is arduous, and it may require strict rule. But the rule-makers and the rule-appliers must begin by being strict with themselves.”