2004-6-25
This is Steve Ember with In the News, in VOA Special English.
This week, the United States
Anti-Doping Agency accused four top runners of drug violations. The
athletes could face lifetime bans from competition. One of them is
Tim Montgomery. He holds the record as the fastest man in the world.
He ran the one-hundred-meter race in nine-point-seven-eight seconds
in two-thousand-two. The other athletes are Chryste Gaines, Alvin
Harrison and Michelle Collins.
The four athletes have never failed a drug test. The agency has
built its case with evidence from a federal investigation of the
BALCO company in California. BALCO is the Bay Area Laboratory
Co-Operative. The agency says the evidence includes e-mail messages
and other documents. A United States Senate committee gave the
agency thousands of pages of documents from the investigation.
Federal officials have charged BALCO founder Victor Conte and
three other men with illegal trade in steroids. These drugs which
can increase athletic performance are banned in most sports. But
their use can be difficult to discover in drug testing.
The United States Anti-Doping
Agency is a private organization. It is known as USADA
[you-SAH-dah]. It was created in two-thousand for the Olympic
movement in the United States.
Its rules permit athletes to continue to compete until their
cases are decided. Competition is set for July ninth to choose the
United States Olympic track and field team. The agency says it hopes
to have the four cases settled before then. The Athens Olympics are
in August.
The agency sent letters to the four runners earlier this month to
tell them they were under investigation. They can appeal to a United
States court or to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, based in
Switzerland.
Punishments could also include a loss of past results. Tim
Montgomery could lose his world record from two-thousand-two.
His lawyers say the evidence against him is weak. They say the
agency is treating him unfairly and wants to ruin him. The San
Francisco Chronicle reported this week that he told an investigating
grand jury last year that he used performance drugs.
Tim Montgomery is the boyfriend of Marion Jones, the runner, who
has won three Olympic gold medals. Marion Jones is also under
investigation. But she has not been charged. She has strongly denied
using illegal substances.
Last month, Olympic runner Kelli White admitted to such use. She
accepted a two-year suspension. She also lost her world championship
titles in the one-hundred and two-hundred meter races.
All this comes as Americans follow the issue of performance drugs
in professional sports. Some top baseball players have been named as
part of the BALCO investigation. This has increased pressure to ban
the use of such drugs by professional players.
In the News, in VOA Special English, was written by Cynthia Kirk.
This is Steve Ember.