WASHINGTON, 30 May 2004 — Results will be expedited from doping tests at July’s United States Olympics Athletics Trials as part of the US Olympic Committee’s plan to send a squad free of doping cheats to the Athens Games.
The US athletics trials will be contested July 9-18, concluding only three days before an International Olympic Committee deadline for naming rosters to the Athens Olympics, set for Aug. 13-29 in the Greek birthplace of the event. With the help of the US Anti-Doping Agency, doping test results will be available within a day in the later stages of the meet to help US officials meet the roster deadline.
“At the trials, we’ve arranged with USADA for a 48-hour turnaround for the first weekend and a 24-hour turnaround for the second weekend,” USA Track and Field chief executive officer Craig Masback told USA Today.
“Clearly, it will be in everyone’s interests, including the athletes, that those cases be adjudicated as quickly as possible,” Masback said.
“My understanding is that (USADA) can very much expedite the process. That ability exists, and they’re willing to do it.” With athletics undergoing tight scrutiny in the wake of the BALCO steroid scandal and USADA using federal investigators’ evidence to consider bans for competitors without positive doping tests, being correct and quick is critical. Tests would be handled by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) labs that were used for the 1984 Los Angeles and 1996 Summer Olympics and the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.
Don Catlin, director of the UCLA lab that uncovered the previously undetectable designer steroid THG, said the one-day testing turnaround in place for the US Olympic qualifying meet will be as fast and accurate as now possible.
