An Olympic-Size Blunder : Flawed due-process procedures unfairly penalize athletes

In a way, track star Butch Reynolds was shot down in the starting blocks. The world record-holder in the 400 meters has been barred from the Olympics this year--and these Games might well be the last in which the 28-year-old could run.

Reynolds, a 1988 gold and silver medalist, has been done in by a blunder of track’s international governing body, the London-based International Amateur Athletic Federation, which fouled up a drug test and then refused to admit it. Because of the IAAF’s seeming contempt for due process and its threats to disqualify other Americans who competed against Reynolds, its judgment is called into question.

The IAAF suspended Reynolds for two years after he supposedly tested positive for an anabolic steroid in August, 1990. It turns out that his two urine samples were improperly sealed and labeled. Eventually, tests found that the two samples ostensibly from Reynolds did not come from the same person. Moreover, he tested clean a week later.

A panel commissioned by The Athletics Congress, track and field’s U.S. governing body, unanimously recommended the suspension be lifted. That should have ended the matter. But the IAAF refused to budge. Although through court action Reynolds was able to compete in American meets, in every race he entered the IAAF threatened to ban his competitors, right up to the Olympic Trials, which began in New Orleans last week. On Saturday the U.S. Supreme Court acted in Reynolds’ favor.

In response, the IAAF backed off--somewhat. It said athletes could compete against Reynolds without risk of “contamination” . . . but it still is barring him from the Olympics.

Clearly, the IAAF must establish guidelines to prevent misuse of drugs. But there cannot rightly be punishment without due process. And for the IAAF to threaten other athletes in the Reynolds case is doubly outrageous.

With the world becoming more interrelated, Americans increasingly are affected by international institutions. As one of the international bodies that has deep impact on some prominent Americans, the IAAF must be held to high standards of fairness. The Olympics wouldn’t be a bad place to start insisting that such standards be met.