Barnes Says Drug Test Mishandled

Shotputter Randy Barnes took the offensive Tuesday against track and field’s international governing body, which suspended him and 400-meter runner Butch Reynolds Monday for failing drug tests last August.

John Dowd, Barnes’ attorney, released an affidavit that details an alleged failure to follow proper procedure during the testing of Barnes. The document asserts that this is a violation of bylaws of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, which governs the sport.

The 54-page document claims that there was sloppy handling of Barnes’ urine sample as well as paperwork errors that “(show) there is no reliable evidence that the tested samples belong to Mr. Barnes.”

The IAAF announced late Monday night that Barnes tested positive for the drug methyltestosterone at a meet in Malmo, Sweden, on Aug. 7. The IAAF also said Reynolds tested positive for nandrolone at a meet in Monte Carlo on Aug. 12. Both substances are steroids and can lead to a mandatory two-year suspension, which would keep them out of next year’s World Championships in Tokyo as well as the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.

Barnes, 24, holds the indoor and outdoor world records in the shotput. Reynolds, 26, is the world record-holder at 400 meters. Both were silver medalists in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Also on Tuesday, The Athletics Congress, which governs the sport in the United States, named a three-person appeals panel to hear Barnes’ case. No date for the hearing was set. Dowd previously applied for a stay, the first step in TAC’s appeals process. Barnes ultimately has the right to appeal to the IAAF.

The status of Reynolds’ case is unclear; neither he nor his agent, Brad Hunt of Advantage International, returned phone calls Tuesday. Under the rules, if Reynolds fails to request a stay within 48 hours of notification of his suspension, he will waive his right to an appeal and will be automatically ruled ineligible.

Barnes is clearly serious about appealing his suspension, retaining the high-powered Dowd to represent him. Dowd is a Washington-based attorney who conducted the investigations of Pete Rose and George Steinbrenner for major league baseball. In an interview Tuesday, Dowd suggested that Barnes has been caught in a web of mistakes and cover-ups.

Dowd said that for a week before Monday’s announcement, TAC officials had lobbied the IAAF on Barnes’ behalf, seeking to persuade the body to throw out the case. Dowd said that despite TAC’s intervention, it was clear the IAAF intended to announce the suspensions.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “To me, that’s what creates a great deal of suspicion. What other conclusions can you draw? It’s a railroad job.”

The suspension of two world record-holders in one day was a hard blow to a hurting sport. It came little more than a month after disgraced Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson returned to competition after his two-year drug suspension. Last month, the Soviet Union announced that 11 of its track and field athletes tested positive in random drug tests.

John Holt, general secretary of the IAAF, said the federation was “staggered” by the test results.

“There was every indication in all countries, and in particular the United States, that we were fighting the doping problem and winning the battle,” Holt said. “Athletes themselves have come out against colleagues who have taken drugs and said, ‘Enough is enough.’ They are fighting this from within their own ranks, and I am therefore very disappointed that these two great names are now on the doping list.”

There is little allowance for deviation from track and field’s strict protocol for post-competition testing. Any failure to follow the testing guidelines, no matter how minor a technicality, can result in the entire test being thrown out. Several athletes have based their successful appeals on technical errors in the sample collection process.

According to Barnes’ affidavit, the doping control officials at the meet in Malmo failed to record the serial numbers used on the envelope sealing the “A” and “B” samples.

If an “A” sample tests positive, the “B” sample is then tested. If it, too, is found to be positive, the athlete is declared to have failed the test. If the “B” sample tests negative, the test is thrown out.

According to the rules, the numbers, which link the samples to an individual athlete, should have been recorded on a doping control form at the time the samples were provided and sealed in the envelopes.

According to the affidavit, the serial numbers were never written on Barnes’ copy of the form and only were added later to the testing lab’s copy. In this case, Dowd argues, it would have been possible to switch Barnes’ sample with another.

The details of Barnes’ case were so murky that the IAAF last month asked its five-member Doping Commission to investigate. The members decided, 3-2, that Barnes’ test should be ruled a positive.

Included in the documents was a report from Richard Hollander, a TAC official who was present when Barnes’ “B” sample was tested in Sweden on Sept. 25. Hollander’s report to TAC executive director Ollan Cassell noted the problem with the numbers used to seal the samples.

The report concluded: “In other words, after the athlete last saw the bottles, there was a period of time before they were sealed . . . Note that the handwriting and the pen used for the seal numbers are different from the lettering and numbers on (another form). And, of course, this is a violation of Rule 4.9 of the Guidelines . . . which states that the ‘bottles shall be sealed in the presence of the athlete.’ ”

Barnes also filed a sworn statement denying having taken drugs. “In six years of competition, I have never taken any prohibited substance,” Barnes’ statement said. “I have been subjected to dope tests on approximately 30 occasions since 1985 and have always tested negatively. I have always submitted to and passed every dope test administered to me, including random and 48-hour tests.”

Frank Greenberg, president of TAC, issued a brief statement Tuesday saying his organization will not comment “until the appropriate time under our rules. . . . To do so would compromise TAC’s policy of confidentiality.”

Barnes noted in his affidavit that he earned $150,000 in 1990 from the sport and had a contract with his track club that could pay him as much as $60,000 and a shoe company contract that could pay him as much as $50,000. However, most endorsement contracts have clauses that render them invalid should the athlete test positive for drugs.