Merritt Wins Doping Battle
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October 6, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
American sprinter LaShawn Merritt has won an appeal against a doping ban, allowing him to defend his Olympic 400m title.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has a ruling which bans any athlete serving a doping ban of over six months from competing in the next Olympic Games.
But the 25-year-old argued that this went further than the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) stipulation of a maximum ban of two years.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) sided with Merritt and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and overturned the IOC ban.
The reigning world 400m champion initially received a two-year ban for testing positive on three separate occasions for a banned steroid in early 2010, but this was later reduced to 21 months.
Merritt and the USOC argued that by then excluding him from the London Games this constituted a three-year ban and the CAS agreed.
USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun insisted that the case and subsequent decision does not undermine the importance of ridding athletics of doping cheats. “This decision does not diminish our commitment to the fight against doping but, rather, ensures that athletes and national Olympic committees have certainty as they prepare for London,” he said.
The ruling by the CAS could also have massive implications for the British Olympic Association (BOA).
They currently have a by-law stating that any athlete who fails a doping test receives a lifetime ban from Olympic competition. 33-year-old sprinter Dwain Chambers has tried and failed to overturn a lifetime ban he received for testing positive for steroids in 2003, whilst he also served the maximum two-year ban from all competition.
His agent has spoken out of Chambers’ interest in the situation and has declared that they will wait to see what happens in the aftermath of the Merritt case before deciding whether to challenge the BOA a second time.
Sazia Agha said: “Dwain and I just want the opportunity to read, digest and review the reasoning behind [US sprinter Merritt's victory].”
If he should now appeal to the CAS and win, as Merritt did, it could force the BOA in to a re-think of their anti-doping laws.
The repercussions may not affect solely athletics either. British cyclist David Millar is said to be closely monitoring the situation. He was stripped of the 2003 World Elite Time trial title after admitting to using the blood-boosting drug EPO.
Under similar rules he hasn’t competed in an Olympic Games since, but should athletes from all sports start challenging their governing bodies following CAS’ ruling on Merritt then he, too, could be available to compete in London next year.
Using his official Twitter account, he called the decision by CAS “a good thing for the future of international sport”, adding that it is “only a matter of time till all countries respect Wada code”.
Even before the Merritt decision, British cycling’s head of performance David Brailford declared that he believed an international set of rules should be agreed on doping to avoid such court cases.
“I’d love to see consistency on a global scale, we have a global anti-doping body in Wada and we should have a global application of the rules,” he said. “It shouldn’t be your nationality that decides if you get banned or not, so if you are French you can ride; if you are British you cannot.”
Leigh Gruffydd Sanders
[Image courtesy of Erik van Leeuwen]