Shroud of Controversy

With behind-the-scenes efforts for a compromise quashed, the U.S. Olympic Committee on Friday set the stage for a vote on the politically charged issue of whether to put USA Track & Field, accused of failing to comply with anti-doping and accounting procedures, on probation.

Probation would, at the least, be an embarrassment. It could ultimately lead to a revocation of Indianapolis-based USATF’s status as this nation’s ruling agency for track and field.

The core issue remains USATF’s refusal to disclose the name of a U.S. athlete who tested positive in 1999 for an anabolic steroid, was exonerated by a USATF appeal board and then competed in the 2000 Sydney Summer Games.

Also at issue, however, is a USATF bureaucracy that once failed to include sprint star Michael Johnson’s name on a list of athletes eligible for out-of-competition drug testing, and that also, according to a USOC report, “failed to cooperate on simple, basic, essential, logistical requirements for in-competition testing.”

Craig Masback, USATF’s chief executive, said Friday, “We’re happy to be part of the Olympic family. We think we have made a contribution to the Olympic movement over the last 100 years.

“We view this as part of the process of the USOC. If this is the way the process unfolds, and if everyone is treated the same way, we have no issues with it.”

He added, “We have complied, and will continue to comply.”

The measure up for a vote Sunday before the 123-member USOC board of directors would formally revoke USATF’s membership in the USOC and its recognition as what is called a “national governing body” if by Aug. 31 USATF “does not come into compliance” with anti-doping and accounting procedures.

USOC president Sandra Baldwin on Friday described the relationship between the USOC and USATF as “very good” and “open.” But, asked about the unnamed athlete who competed in the 2000 Games, she said, “The issue needs to be resolved.”

Earlier this week, it was announced that the dispute over release of the athlete’s identity will be referred to a special tribunal, the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“We cannot continue to accept a stalemate over this case,” Lamine Diack, president of the International Assn. of Athletics Federations, track and field’s worldwide governing body, said in a statement released from the IAAF’s Monaco headquarters.

Since September 2000, senior officials connected to the IAAF, the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency have pressed for release of the athlete’s name. USATF has said that rules in effect at the time of the 1999 test forbid it from identifying the athlete.

“I must say I do not understand how in the interests of doping-free sport there has not been more transparency in this matter,” Dick Pound, a Montreal attorney and IOC member who serves as chairman of WADA, said in a recent interview. “The refusal to provide the IAAF with the details in accordance with IAAF rules is inexplicable.”

Frank Shorter, the 1972 Olympic marathon champion and chairman of USADA, which since October 2000 has overseen the testing of athletes in this country, added, “There’s no legal grounds for privacy. End of issue.”

No timetable has been set for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to hear the case. If ordered by CAS to divulge the name, Masback said, USATF will do so.

Johnson’s name, meantime, was left off a USATF list of more than 500 athletes eligible for out-of-competition, no-advance notice testing in the first three months of 2001.

The list was submitted to USADA in November 2000. USADA noticed the omission and added Johnson to the list. Thus, Masback noted in an April 17 letter to the USOC, “there was never a time when the athlete was not in the [no-advance notice] pool and eligible for testing.”

He also said the error took place when USATF was putting the list of eligible athletes--which it got not from its own files but from the magazine Track & Field News--into the USADA’s computer database format.

“Our mistake was a serious one for which we should be held accountable,” Masback said in the letter.

USATF’s problems with in-competition testing, he said, can be traced to an “over-ambitious” 2001 program. It asked USADA to test at 21 events; the average U.S. governing body--meaning the agencies that even in non-Olympic years supervise the 28 Summer Games sports--tested at four events. USATF typically asked to test 41 athletes per event, well ahead of the average, 14 per event.

Leading athletes were tested particularly frequently in 2001 by USADA and the IAAF, Masback said. Sprinter and long jumper Marion Jones and pole vaulter Stacy Dragila were each tested 12 times.

Nonetheless, Masback said, USATF “did not devote sufficient resources to guarantee adequate oversight of the 21 events,” and will do “whatever USADA or [the USOC] recommends to improve our performance in this area.”

The USOC’s review of USATF’s financial and accounting procedures identified four shortcomings--for instance, demanding that USATF develop more consistency in the way it reports financial grants. The review does not allege financial improprieties.