2 U.S. Track Athletes Banned

U.S. track and field standouts Melissa Price and John McEwen were banned from competition for two years Thursday after an arbitration panel ruled that they had committed doping violations by testing positive for the designer steroid THG.

Price and McEwen, both hammer throwers, were the first U.S. athletes suspended for THG since it had been discovered last summer. USA Track & Field will enforce the suspensions. Their attorney, Howard Jacobs of Westlake Village, said it was not immediately clear whether they would appeal.The arbitration panel said, “The use of such a powerful anabolic steroid could be for no other purpose than to enhance an athlete’s performance in violation of the spirit and absolute proscriptions of the ... doping rules.”

The language delighted U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials, who had wanted an unequivocal statement that THG, about which little is known, is a potent performance-boosting substance.

“Today is a great day for those athletes who want to compete on a level playing field,” said Terry Madden, USADA’s chief executive.

Five athletes, four of them American, have tested positive for THG, which is at the center of a criminal probe focused on Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative of Burlingame, Calif.

Anti-doping authorities have said they believe that BALCO distributed THG.

Arbitration proceedings involving the other two U.S. athletes, distance runner Regina Jacobs and shotput champion Kevin Toth, are pending. British sprint champ Dwain Chambers previously received a two-year suspension. Officials on Thursday stripped the British relay team of the silver medal it won at last year’s world championships in Paris; Chambers had run in that race.

BALCO’s co-founder, Victor Conte, has been indicted in federal court in San Francisco on 42 felony counts, along with another BALCO executive, baseball slugger Barry Bonds’ personal trainer, and noted track coach Remi Korchemny. All have pleaded not guilty. Bonds, along with track stars Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, was among those who testified last year before a U.S. grand jury probing the BALCO case. All three have denied taking steroids. Price, 24, of Lincoln, Neb., tested positive for THG in June 2003, at the U.S. national championships at Stanford. She won the hammer throw at that event; that result was erased.

McEwen, 30, tested positive for THG as well as the stimulant modafinil last June at Stanford. He forfeits his second-place finish at the 2003 U.S. championships.

USADA had asked for four-year suspensions for each. The panel ordered two-year bans, the standard penalty for a steroid bust.