Part One: Justin Gatlin tests positive
This post is part one of my three part series regarding Justin Gatlin (track and field) and Floyd Landis (cycling) and drug testing. Aside from giving my own opinion, I’ll try to lay out the situation for both athletes. The second part is in regards to the Landis situation and the third part will be me showing you the differences between the two situations since many in the media are doing their best to compare the two athletes.
Justin Gatlin tests positive
On April 22, 2006, sprinter Justin Gatlin partook in the Kansas Relays where he submitted a urine sample for drug testing. This week, Gatlin announced that the test came back positive for high levels of testosterone or its precursors. Both the “A” sample and the “B” sample have come back positive, with the “B” sample being analyzed this month.
The 24 year old had become the new face of track and field. In part because of his high achievements, but also for proclaiming himself clean and trying to rebuild the image of the sport. He first came onto “the scene” in 2004 when he won the gold medal in the 100m event at the Summer Olympics. He is currently the reigning 200m world champion and holds the joint 100m world record with Jamaican Asafa Powell with a time of 9.77 seconds. He tied the world record just three weeks after that Kansas relay race.
Exactly one month after the Kansas relays, an article by Tim Layden in the 5/22/06 Sports Illustrated issue had this quote from Gatlin about his importance to the sport and staying clean.
“I see the look on people’s faces when I tell them my coach’s name,” Gatlin told SI last month. “I see when they pause and then start to put it together. But I understand what it would mean to track and field if I ever tested positive or went down in some scandal. At this point, that would be one of the hardest hits the sport could take. Not to have an ego about it, but that might be the KO for our sport. I know how important it is that I’m clean.”
So if Gatlin said that quote a month before it was published in SI, he must have said it right around the time he raced in that relay. Either Gatlin blatantly lied to SI and its readers or he was somehow set up because he definitely tested positive.
Ok, so what are the basic “facts” surrounding this story?
1) Both of his “A” and “B” samples came back positive for high levels of testosterone or its precursors.
2) His coach, Trevor Graham, has coached six other athletes who have been suspended for steroid use/doping. This is why there is such a cloud of suspicion surrounding Gatlin. He looks guilty by association.
3) Back in his days as a NCAA sprinting champ, Gatlin tested positive for amphetamine. He was given a two year ban. However, he proved that he had been taking Adderall for his ADD since the age of seven and that was what showed up on the test. His ban was shortened to 12 months. If his appeals fail, Gatlin will receive a lifetime ban from the sport at the age of 24 since it would be his second offense. In fact, he told reporters that he was even more careful about what he put in his body since that episode.
“That experience made me even more vigilant to make certain that I not come into contact with any banned substance for any reason whatsoever, because any additional anti-doping rule offense could mean a lifetime ban from the sport that I love,” Gatlin said.
His coach even told a TV station in North Carolina during an interview that Gatlin goes out and buys his own nutritional supplements because he doesn’t trust anyone else - not even his parents or coach.
4) Gatlin’s coach is now saying that the sprinter was setup and that the positive test is a result of sabotage.
“We are 100 percent sure who it is,” Graham said. “The individual that did it, it’s an individual that we fired and we went back and hired … he came to the Kansas relay and was [upset] with Justin.”
Why would you hire that person after firing them? Obviously Gatlin and his lawyers will have to provide a lot more evidence than that to convince the USADA (United States Anti-Doping Agency).
Update: Graham is now calling out the massage therapist who supposedly set Gatlin up.
Gatlin’s coach, Trevor Graham, told The Washington Post on Sunday that the Olympic and world champion and co-world-record holder in the 100 meters was the victim of a setup by a massage therapist. Graham told the newspaper for a story posted on its Web that the massage therapist rubbed a testosterone cream on Gatlin without the sprinter’s knowledge.
Graham declined to name the massage therapist, saying he did not want to jeopardize the case.
“We know who the person is who actually did this,” Graham told the Post by phone from Raleigh, N.C., the home base of his Sprint Capitol team. “Justin is devastated. Myself, too. We’re extremely [upset] right now. We are trying to go out and make sure we can prove his innocence, and we hope this individual has the guts to come forward and say he did it.”
5) And if a positive drug test isn’t bad enough, apparently Gatlin’s name is on one of the many many pages of documents in the BALCO case.
In June 2003, BALCO owner Victor Conte drafted a letter to the US Anti-Doping Agency and the international governing body for track and field detailing allegations of how Graham was doping his athletes with “oral testosterone undeconate,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Chronicle.
In the letter, Conte writes, “Oral testosterone undeconate will clear the body and be undetectable in urine in less than a week after discontinuing use.” At the end of the letter, Conte identified four athletes he said were using the drugs. One of those was Gatlin. Ultimately, Conte never sent the correspondence.
6) What really puts the nail in the coffin (and a big difference between Gatlin and Landis) is this: Gatlin’s lawyer, Cameron Myler, said the “test employed indicated that the testosterone in her client’s body were synthetic or came from an external source - ruling out the argument that Gatlin produced naturally high levels of the substance.” Ouch.
So what have people been saying about this positive test result?
Justin Gatlin released this public statement:
“I cannot account for these results because I have never knowingly used any banned substance or authorized anyone else to administer such a substance to me. In the course of my entire professional career, I have been tested more than 100 times. All of the tests this season, including the out-of-competition tests conducted just before and after the race in Kansas, were negative.”
The guys at Deadspin had this to say in regards to Gatlin’s statement:
Oh, good, so he has a copy of the “What To Say When You Test Positive” handbook. Surely, there were one or two of those laying around, as his coach, Trevor Graham, was heavily involved with the BALCO investigation. Victor Conte himself wrote to the U.S. Anti-Doping agency, alleging that Graham doped the bejeezus out of his athletes.
IAAF President Lamine Diack released the following comment on their website:
“Although it is a matter of deep regret that one of the biggest stars of our sport is facing serious doping charges, I would take this opportunity to emphasise the IAAF’s total commitment to the fight against doping. In order to defend the credibility of our sport, we will engage all our efforts, in co-operation with partners such as USADA, to defend the majority of athletes who are clean, against those who break our anti-doping rules.”
The same website also said that Gatlin will appear before the USADA Review Board in the near future.
A statement issued by USADA CEO Terry Madden was also put up on their website, but it refused to comment on Gatlin’s situation.
The USA Track & Field program had no problem issuing a statement via their website in regards to Justin Gatlin:
USA Track & Field is gravely concerned that Justin Gatlin has tested positive for banned substances. Justin has been one of the most visible spokespersons for winning with integrity in the sport of track and field, and throughout his career he has made clear his willingness to take responsibility for his actions. Although difficult, his case demonstrates that in track and field and Olympic sports, it doesn’t matter who you are. If you test positive for a banned substance, you will face substantial consequences. We hope Justin has not committed a doping offense, and we await the completion of the adjudication process.
US Olympic Committee CEO Jim Scherr also commented on the situation:
“While this news is disappointing, it underscores the commitment we have made to protect the integrity of sport through clean competition,” Scherr said. “No one, regardless of their stature, is above the system. We understand that Justin has been working with USADA, and would encourage him to continue doing so.”
Dick Pound, the head of WADA, had this to say in an interview while on BBC Radio Five Live:
“He needs to be banned for up to life,” Pound said in an interview on BBC Radio Five Live. “There may be some extenuating circumstances to come out, but I think if he just continues to come out with some bland denial that, ‘I never did anything, I can’t imagine how this result occurred,’ that will not help him when it comes to sentencing.
“If they can find someone who did, in fact, spike it, then it is for them to prove but short of something like that I think he has a very serious problem.”
So what do I think?
As much as I want to think all great track sprinters are clean, it’s becoming incredibly hard to do so. I love track. I ran the 100m and 4×100m for five years for my middle school and high school before my knee injuries caused me to stop. It’s a beautiful sport and an incredible event to watch. However, I’m not that surprised by the positive test results. He is being coached by Graham who is known for having his athletes be suspended for steroid use. If he really was set up, I hope he can prove it without a doubt. Otherwise, my beloved sport is going to struggle at least on the professional level. And it saddens me that a promising sprinter ruins his career to stay “competitive” via drug use.
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2 Responses to “Part One: Justin Gatlin tests positive”
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July 31st, 2006 at 12:15 am
[…] This is the second part of my three part series regarding Justin Gatlin, Floyd Landis, and drug testing. Yes, this brief series has absolutely nothing to do with hockey. It has everything to do with news that I want to discuss/vent as well as me trying to bring in readers who may be interested in hockey AND other sports. Anyways if you missed the first part, you can check it out here. […]
August 6th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
[…] I was going to do a Part Three in my series (Part One and Part Two), but there doesn’t really seem to be a whole lot of differences between the stories as there potentially could’ve been. The one main difference sprinter Justin Gatlin and cyclist Floyd Landis is that Gatlin’s sanction would be a lifetime ban whereas Landis would be two years plus another two years without riding for a top 20 ProTour team. […]