Report Criticizes USATF for Drug-Test Procedures

While USA Track and Field did not intentionally cover up positive drug tests of athletes before the 2000 Summer Olympics, the organization did intentionally delay reporting results or impeded proper authorities from verifying positive drug tests, according to the findings of an independent commission.

The 102-page report, which was critical of the behavior of the USATF, was issued by The Independent International Review Commission on Wednesday.

USATF, contradicting some of its own policies, did not provide proper authorities with the names and addresses of U.S. athletes who tested positive for banned substances; did not follow international guidelines for the proper reporting of athletes who had failed drug tests; and allowed a U.S. athlete who had tested positive for steroids to compete in the 2000 Sydney Olympics, according to the report.

While the report did say that it “found no evidence that anyone at USATF ‘covered up’ any positive drug tests in the sense that no one willfully suppressed or failed to process any positive drug tests by U.S. athletes,” it also said that “USATF did not utilize certain of its own existing procedures for assuring that no doping cases were ignored or suppressed.”

The independent commission was created after the embarrassing revelation in Sydney that 1999 world shotput champion C.J. Hunter, husband of star sprinter Marion Jones, had tested positive for anabolic steroid use well before the U.S. Olympic track trials last summer.

Hunter retained his athlete’s Olympic credential even after he had withdrawn from the U.S. team because of injury Sept. 11. Two weeks later, the IAAF announced Hunter had already been suspended from international competition because of a positive drug test last July.

At the time, officials from the International Olympic Committee and the IAAF, the word governing body for track, accused the U.S. of a pattern of covering up positive drug tests and of intentionally delaying and hindering IAAF investigations into positive drug tests.

Jill Geer, director of communications for USATF, said the organization “welcomed the findings,” and feels vindicated because, Geer said, “Keeping in mind that in Sydney highly placed officials of the [IAAF and IOC] were accusing us of a cover-up, we are clearly pleased to have it stated, in black and white, that we were involved in no cover-up.”

IAAF and IOC sources had accused the USATF of purposely hiding Hunter’s positive drug test from the IAAF.

Geer said the USATF had been in an untenable position of having to act as both an advocate for the athletes in its organization and as a policeman of those athletes as well.

What the commission and the IAAF found as, at best, foot-dragging, and, at worst, as an effort to suppress positive drug tests of American athletes, Geer said was the USATF acting cautiously to ensure the fair treatment of its athletes.

“We never said we were perfect,” Geer said. “It is fair to say, I think, that we did the best we could under difficult circumstances with conflicting jurisdictional issues. We were trying to be an athletes’ advocate at the same time as we were supposed to be prosecuting doping offenses.”

Robert Bennett, an investigative lawyer for the commission said that the report “spoke for itself.” He laughed when asked about the USATF response of feeling “vindicated,” and told the Associated Press that the USATF response was “unfortunate.”

Micki King, a former U.S. Olympic diver and a member of the commission said: “I think this was a terrific report. If people read the recommendations, take a deep breath and take some meaningful actions pertaining to our recommendations, then I think we can have some change.”

King also would not comment on the USATF reactions except to say that “the report speaks for itself.”

Most damning to the USATF in the report was the conclusion that “There were 17 specific doping cases that the IAAF alleges the USATF did not timely report.” The commission found that 17 U.S. athletes had positive drug samples turn up at an IOC-accredited laboratory at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The lab, according to the commission, “was to report all positive samples--by sample number only--to the IAAF and the IOC.

“USATF did not report these cases of its own initiative to the IAAF because it did not think it was required to do so and because it assumed the Indianapolis lab had done so. As it turned out, the laboratory failed to report these 17 sample numbers to the IAAF until just a few weeks prior to the Olympics.”

It was this delay in reporting positive drug tests to the IAAF that led, according to the commission, of an unnamed U.S. athlete with a positive result competing in Australia.

Geer said this athlete had, however, been exonerated by follow-up procedures.

Craig Masback, the CEO of USATF, was on vacation and unavailable for comment. He issued a statement disagreeing with several conclusions in the report.

“We certainly never said that we’re perfect,” the statement said. “As we expected, the shortcomings of our system were put on display, especially those conflicts that arise from the conflicting legal and regulatory systems under which USATF operated in doping procedures.

“It was not the fault of USATF that there were delays in reporting positive drug test results,” Masback’s statement said. It was the fault of the IOC-accredited laboratories in processing athlete letters of explanation, “delays in receipt of other information from various regulatory bodies, including the USOC and IAAF.”

Masback also said that USATF confidentiality policies, which the commission report in part blamed as part of the problem “were not an attempt to hinder or undermine anti-doping procedures.”

Since the Sydney Olympics, USATF has been relieved of the responsibility for dealing with drug testing. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency will handle the testing and Geer said that is a positive development of the controversy.