The United States Olympic team on Thursday night 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 teammates 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, spokesperson 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 100 and 200 metres 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 night.
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 100 metres champion and record holder, testing positive last August and incurring a two-year suspension.
The laboratory is at the centre 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 several million dollars in endorsements and appearance fees.
Jones has contacted anti-doping agency officials asking them to test all her recent blood or urine samples in an effort to clear her name after Conte allegedly told US government officials she was among several high-profile athletes he had provided with steroids.
”The corrosive air of suspicion and frenzied anticipation which now surrounds my client can only be dispelled through quick and decisive action,” said her lawyer, Joseph Burton.
”Continued speculation over the course of the next several months about her relationship with Balco and her status as a drug-free athlete can only serve to cloud the process and tarnish her reputation.”
Burton also said Jones would like to meet anti-doping agency officials, but was keen to emphasise that this should not be interpreted to mean she was entering into negotiations with the agency.
Until recently, the US had a reputation for being soft on drugs and was often criticised 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.
Johnson tested positive for anabolic steroids after winning the Seoul Games 100m final in a world record time of 9,79 seconds.
He is the only other high-profile athlete to publicly admit to taking performance-enhancing drugs. Johnson was stripped of his gold medal and subsequently all his times, including his 1987 world record of 9,83, were annulled by the International Association of Athletics Federations.
White had no idea how much information anti-doping officials had on her until they confronted her last Tuesday with incriminating evidence from the Balco files.
They consist of thousands of pages of documents obtained during the raid of the lab, including drug schedules with White’s name on them.
Before then, Colton said, White was aware only of the positive tests for modafinil, a drug used to treat narcolepsy, found during a routine urine test at the world championships, for which the punishment is only a public warning.
Among the drugs the anti-doping agency found White had used was erythropoietin, a blood-oxygen booster more commonly used by cyclists and distance runners, and previously undetectable steroids.
”When USADA received the documents [from the Senate], the conversation changed,” Colton said.
”USADA said they thought we might be interested in reviewing those materials and having discussions with them. They were certainly dealing from a position of strength.
”We felt they held all the cards.” – Guardian Unlimited