Panel Refuses to Lift Ban on Record-Holder Reynolds

An international track and field arbitration panel on Monday refused to lift the two-year ban on Butch Reynolds, preventing the 400-meter world record-holder from competing in this summer’s Olympic Games.

Reynolds tested positive for steroids after a meet in Monte Carlo in August of 1990. His ban expires Aug. 15. The Barcelona Olympics end Aug. 9.

“The next step can only be legal action in the courts,” Reynolds told the Associated Press after an International Amateur Athletic Federation arbitration panel in London upheld the ban.

“I am very upset. Injustice was definitely done,” said Reynolds, 27. “If I have to fight to my dying day to prove my innocence, I will do it.

“They haven’t heard the last of Butch Reynolds. If they think I’m going to quit now, they’ve got another thing coming--and I have faith I will still be competing in the Barcelona Olympics.”

After a two-day hearing at the IAAF’s London headquarters, the panel’s president, Lauri Tarasti of Finland, said it found no reason to lift the ban.

The panel, he said, was convinced that the samples were Reynolds’, that they contained the banned steroid Nandrolone and that they had not been tampered with, which had been Reynolds’ claim.

Reynolds’ agent, reached Monday at his hotel in London, was critical of the appeals process, citing an inherent conflict of interest.

“You’re asking (the IAAF) to criticize and enforce themselves and find fault with their own system,” Brad Hunt said.

Hunt was also critical of what he termed the panel’s inattention to Reynolds’ case. He said that the American Arbitration Assn. spent four days investigating before deciding to side with Reynolds, and that The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field in the United States, deliberated for two weeks before joining with Reynolds in his appeal.

The IAAF considered Reynolds’ case for two hours on Monday.

Reynolds set a world record of 43.29 seconds in the 400 in 1988, breaking the 20-year-old mark held by Lee Evans. At the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Reynolds won the silver medal, finishing behind Steve Lewis.