US withdraw lifetime drugs ban proposal at congress

The United States yesterday withdrew a proposal to impose lifetime bans on all athletes testing positive for steroids after being assured that the world governing body would seek to double the present two-year ban.

On the first day of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) biennial congress, vice-president Arne Ljungqvist said a lifetime ban would result in court challenges to the federation.

Instead he said the IAAF proposed lobbying the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to increase the present ban of two years to four years.

In response, the president of USA Track & Field Bill Roe said the United States would withdraw their motion.

Opening the debate Ljungqvist, also president of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, said the IAAF had introduced a four-year ban in 1989.

That was the year after Canadian Ben Johnson tested positive for steroids following his victory in the Seoul Olympic 100 metres final.

"We did expect some problems with the four-year ban," he said.

"It was simply unworkable throughout the world so we had to get back to the two-year ban in 1997.

"The two-year ban has been accepted by the international legal community. CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) has regarded the two-year ban as acceptable for the international legal community.

"We will immediately run into legal problems and won't be the international leader that is the position we have today."

Ljungqvist said the council proposed seeking a four-year ban from WADA, the body set up in 2000 to unify bans throughout world sport.

IAAF general secretary Istvan Gyulai said the federation had conducted more dope tests last year than any other sport. He said nearly 20,000 athletes had been tested with 1.15 per cent testing positive.

"This remains significantly lower than the average across sport," he said.

IAAF president Lamine Diack said around half the athletes at the Helsinki world championships starting on Saturday would be tested with the number of tests doubled since the 2003 Paris championships.

In the morning session the congress narrowly rejected a proposal aimed at doubling the period of ineligibility for athletes changing nationality.

The IAAF council decided in April that athletes must now wait for three years after gaining citizenship before they can compete for their new country.

A proposal banning false starts was withdrawn by the IAAF. At present, one false start is allowed by anybody in the field with the next offender getting automatically disqualified.

IAAF president Lamine Diack said that because of opposition from several federations, including the US and Canada, the motion would be withdrawn.

The IAAF's technical committee was also opposed to the change.