Doping Violation Causes U.S. to Lose World Medal

The United States was stripped of its 1,600-meter relay gold medal from the 2003 world championships on Sunday because of Calvin Harrison’s second doping violation.

The gold instead goes to France, with Jamaica getting the silver and the Bahamas the bronze, the world governing body of track and field said in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

Harrison was found guilty of using the stimulant modafinil at the U.S. championships in June 2003. He had contended that modafinil wasn’t specifically mentioned on the official list of banned substances at the time.

Harrison had a chance to appeal the ruling, but the International Assn. of Athletics Federations said he was too late.

“The deadline has passed and that means there is a new result in the relay final,” IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said Sunday.

Ten years earlier, Harrison tested positive for the stimulant pseudoephedrine during the 1993 U.S. junior indoor championships and served a three-month ban.

As a two-time offender, the 400-meter star was suspended for two years in early August this year and dropped from the American team for the Athens Olympics. The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency also ordered him to forfeit his relay gold medal from last year’s worlds in Paris.

Harrison ran the opening leg of the relay final. That means the other three runners, Tyree Washington, Derrick Brew and Jerome Young, will lose their gold medals too.

Tennis

Russia edged defending champion France, 3-2, at Moscow, to claim its first Fed Cup title, with Anastasia Myskina and Vera Zvonareva beating Marion Bartoli and Emilie Loit, 7-6 (5), 7-5, in the decisive doubles match.

The two-day final was tied, 1-1, heading into Sunday, and Myskina beat Nathalie Dechy, 6-3, 6-4, to put Russia ahead, 2-1.

But U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova wasted a chance to clinch the title, losing to Tatiana Golovin, 6-4, 6-1.

Winter Sports

Apolo Anton Ohno won two races and teamed with Hyo-Jung Kim to give the United States a sweep in the 1,000-meter event at the World Cup short-track speedskating tournament at Madison, Wis.

Ohno won the 1,000 meters in 1:26.914 and then won the 3,000-meter event in 5:13.504. He originally placed second in the longer race but took the gold after winner Mathieu Turcotte of Canada was disqualified for impeding another skater.

Finland’s Tanja Poutiainen won for the second time in three races at Aspen Mountain, beating Italy’s Manuela Moelgg by more than a second in a World Cup slalom at Aspen, Colo.

American Kristina Koznick was third.

Miscellany

The USC women’s volleyball team will play host to the first and second rounds of the 2004 NCAA tournament on Thursday and Friday at the Lyon Center.

USC (19-5) will face College of Charleston (26-5) in the opening round on Thursday at 7 p.m. The winner will face the winner of Thursday’s Cal State Northridge (17-10)-Kansas State (19-10) match in the second round on Friday at 7 p.m.

UCLA (18-10) will also play host to a first- and second-round bracket. The Bruins play Loyola Marymount (17-11) on Friday at 8 p.m. and the winner will take on the winner of Friday’s Long Beach State (23-6)-Utah (24-6) match on Saturday at 7 p.m.

In other first-round matchups, UC Irvine (18-10) will play Arizona on Friday at San Diego.

A replay of Saturday night’s pay-per-view fight between Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales will be televised on HBO on Saturday night at 10:45. Barrera won a majority decision.

Passings

Longtime teacher and football coach Rick Scott, who guided Newhall Hart to a section title and helped found the Ventura County Football Coaches Assn. during his tenure at Ventura Buena, died of natural causes Saturday, the county coroner’s office reported. He was 55.

Scott coached 16 years at Buena, where he continued to teach after retiring as head coach in 2003.