TAC Panel Upholds Two-Year Suspension of Barnes

An appeals panel of The Athletics Congress has upheld the two-year suspension of Randy Barnes, world record-holder in the shotput.

The ruling, announced by TAC on Tuesday, effectively exhausts Barnes’ appeal with the U.S. track and field federation. He may appeal for arbitration through the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Barnes, 24, tested positive for methyltestosterone, an anabolic steroid, at a meet in Sweden on Aug. 7, 1990. His suspension began last November and runs through Nov. 1, 1992, and will prevent him from competing in both the World Championships this August and the 1992 Olympic Games at Barcelona.

Barnes was the 1988 Olympic silver medalist and last year broke the world record for the shotput with a throw of 75 feet 10 1/4 inches at a meet at UCLA. His record will be expunged from the record books.

A TAC Drug Appeals Board panel of lawyers William Hickman of Seattle and Jed Brickner of Los Angeles and hurdler Candy Young of Hackensack, N.J., upheld the suspension announced inJanuary by TAC’s Doping Hearing Board.

In that earlier decision, the Doping Hearing Board criticized international drug testing procedures and said track and field’s international rules put “an impossible burden” on athletes to prove their innocence.

That burden of proof was a key component to Barnes’ appeal. He argued that much of the evidence needed to prove his case was obtainable only through TAC. Because TAC did not have the burden to prove Barnes’ guilt, it made little effort to turn over evidence.

In its 16-page opinion released Tuesday, the Drug Appeals Board found that it would not always be “wise” to put this burden on TAC. However, the Board also said, “it is imperative to the fairness of the process that accused athletes have a full opportunity to gather all evidence reasonably necessary to mount a defense.”

Barnes, who lives in South Charleston, W.Va., could not be reached for comment.

A spokesman for Barnes released a written statement in which that he will try his lot at professional football--a game he last played in high school--and that he will continue to try to clear his name.