Lifetime banishment for first-time steroid doping offenders was approved in the United States Sunday by USA Track and Field’s membership at the conclusion of its convention.
US athletes supported the Zero Tolerance programme unanimously and only a single negative vote was cast among hundreds of delegates favouring the measure, which became effective immediately.
”I’m completely satisfied,” veteran US sprinter Jon Drummond said.
”It sends a message that we’re trying to do something to add fair play to the sport. We’re calling on the rest of the world to adopt it.”
Drummond, a member of USA Track’s Board of Directors, said the need for such a ”necessary evil” as a lifetime ban is a catch-22 that US athletes have faced since the earliest days of drug testing.
”A lot of people point fingers at athletes,” said Drummond, an integral member of the Olympic-winning 4x100m relay team in 2000.
”We can’t please everybody. Some people are going to say ‘They aren’t going to enforce it.’ We want to see the world adopt this so the whole Olympic movement will clean up.”
The Zero Tolerance plan was formed in the wake of the October discovery of the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), which has turned up in doping tests of four American athletes and British sprinter Dwain Chambers.
Lifetime bans are not retroactive so would not apply to THG positives by Regina Jacobs, Kevin Toth, John McEwan and an unidentified fourth US athlete. Nor would life bans come from positives from future testing of past samples.
US Olympic Committee (USOC) officials demanded swift and firm action by USA Track and Field in response to the THG scandal, the subject of a federal grand jury probe involving baseball and American football players and swimmers.
Exact wording of the regulation takes careful note of the possible legal challenge the lifetime ban could face under the US Amateur Sports Act, which forbids more restrictive US federation bans than any global governing body.
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has only a two-year minimum ban for a first steroid offense.
The regulation reads that a steroid suspension ”shall be for life provided that such lifetime suspension does not violate any provision of the Sports Act, including the provision that requires that USA Track and Field may not have eligibility criteria related to amateur status or participation in the Olympic Games … that are more restrictive than those of the appropriate international sports federation”.
”That’s the protocol to protect ourselves,” USA Track president Bill Roe said. ”There are some inexact degrees in that. We have enough issues with the US Olympic Committee. We want to do this the way they would like.”
USA Track and Field’s position is that the IAAF penalty runs from two years to life and so the lifetime ban is allowed under the US Sports Act.
USA Track and Field chief executive Craig Masback has seen verbal support for the measure from IAAF officials but wants a concrete ruling on the matter to protect the lifetime ban from any potential legal challenges.
”The clearest thing they could do is revise the rules so there is no ambiguity,” Masback said.
USA Track and Field has sought US Olympic Committee aid in approaching the US Congress about revising the Amateur Sports Act to remove doping offenses from tougher measures than global governing bodies.
But seeking action through US lawmakers is likely a more time-consuming path to closing any possible loopholes. — Sapa-AFP