U.S. sprinter booted for drugs

Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2004 | 9:46 a.m.

SUN WIRE REPORTS

ATHENS, Greece -- Calvin Harrison has been suspended for two years for a second doping violation, knocking the sprinter off the U.S. team for the Athens Olympics and likely forcing the United States to forfeit a relay gold medal from last year's world championships.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency said Monday that Harrison was found guilty of using the stimulant modafinil at the U.S. track and field championships in June 2003.

His case was heard last week by a three-member arbitration panel, which rejected Harrison's appeal of the test results. Harrison did not attend the 8-hour arbitration hearing.

Harrison also tested positive for the stimulant pseudoephedrine at the 1993 U.S. junior indoor championships and served a three-month suspension. As a repeat offender, he got the 2-year ban.

Harrison's lawyer, Ed Williams, said Monday he was not sure whether he will appeal the ruling to the Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Williams said he was disappointed the arbitrators did not accept his argument that the 1993 suspension should have been nullified because athletes were not accorded adequate due process at that time.

He also argued unsuccessfully before the panel that since modafinil was not specifically named on the banned substance list in 2003, that Harrison would have had no way of knowing it was prohibited.

USADA's director of legal affairs, Travis Tygart, said modafinil -- which is now on the banned list -- was prohibited in 2003 because it was chemically related to stimulants named on the list of banned substances.

Harrison, part of the 1,600-meter gold medal relay team at the Sydney Olympics that already faces loss of its medals because of a positive drug test by Jerome Young, had been named to the U.S. squad for Athens as part of the relay pool.

"We are smiling because people could not imagine that in six months or one year there is such a difference," chief Olympic organizer Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said Monday. "I mean in less than six months, no one could imagine three different trains would be running around Athens. Now it is happening."

As little as two months ago, the International Olympic Committee was worried that a number of venues and projects -- from the main Olympic Stadium to a new tram, metro and suburban rail network -- would not be completed in time.

"I cannot claim triumph. ... The games have to start and finish," Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said.

Fears of terrorism led to low ticket sales overseas, a problem accentuated by the Greeks' seeming lack of interest in the games. But Angelopoulos-Daskalaki said that had changed.

"Every day sales pick up and we had some big numbers. We started at 3,000 per day. ... Today they informed me that it was not even midday when sales exceeded 20,000," she said.

About 3.1 million of 5.3 million tickets remain unsold.