ATHLETICS: As another athlete under investigation in the United States' biggest doping scandal fell by the wayside at the Olympic trials in Sacramento, California, health officials announced they were pressing for a record fine against the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), the company at the centre of the controversy.
Alvin Harrison, the 2000 Olympic 400 metres silver medallist, became the fourth of five athletes facing possible doping bans to fail to qualify for the US team for Athens. He joined the world 100 metres record holder Tim Montgomery, last year's second-ranked sprinter, Chryste Gaines, and the 2003 world indoor champion, Michelle Collins.
Regina Jacobs has still to compete in the 1,500 metres, which begins on Friday. All deny taking drugs.
In addition, Marion Jones, who has not been charged but is the subject of an investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), did not qualify to defend her Olympic 100 metres title, although she scraped into the long jump final, which is due to take place tomorrow.
The Californian Department of Health Services is pushing for a $772,170 (about €630,000) fine for Balco, which it claims operated illegally for more than 13 years by submitting forged signatures on licence-renewal applications to hand out prescription drugs.
Harrison, who like the other athletes charged by the USADA claims never to have taken banned performance-enhancing drugs, was edged out of the final along with the world champion Jerome Young.
Young admitted after his victory in Paris last summer that he had failed a test for the steroid nandrolone in 1999. His admission led the International Association of Athletics Federations to refer his case to the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
It ruled last month that he should have been suspended at the time of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a decision that will lead to the US 4x400 metres squad being stripped of the gold medals they won with Young's help.
The 40-year-old Jacobs, the world indoor 1,500 metres champion in 2003, is facing a two-year ban after testing positive for the same designer steroid as Britain's Dwain Chambers, tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).
An arbitration hearing for Jacobs has been scheduled for Sunday, the day when she may be trying to qualify for Athens and win her 13th national title.
Her lawyer, Edward Williams, said the hearing before three arbitrators will begin in the morning and, if necessary, break for the final in the afternoon.
If the American Arbitration Association hearing has not been completed by that time, Williams said, it would resume after the race.
"It's all so unfair," Williams said of the timing of the arbitration hearing. "It's laughable. What they propose is that they'll start the hearing in the morning. Regina will be at a video teleconference centre some miles from the track. She can come all suited up, with a warm-up outfit or something."
While Jacobs would be in Sacramento, most of the other people involved in the hearing will be in New York - including Williams, two arbitrators and officials from the USADA. The third arbitrator will be on a video-conference hook-up in Paris, Williams said.
The case went to arbitration only after Jacobs lost two appeals in federal courts in New York. Her lawsuit challenging the USADA's arbitration process was thrown out by a district judge and then by a federal appeals court.
Guardian Service
