Beijing Olympic Games

U.S. asks for 4×400m record to be re-examined

CHICAGO (Reuters) - USA Track & Field (USATF) chief executive Doug Logan on Thursday asked for the American men’s 4×400-metres record, which is also the world record, to be re-examined in light of recent doping revelations.

The relay team of Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Tyree Washington and Michael Johnson ran 2:54.20 on July 22 1998 in Uniondale but Pettigrew in May admitted to engaging in doping activities dating back to 1997.

As part of Pettigrew’s penalty, issued on June 3, 2008, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) invalidated all his results starting in 1997—a time frame that includes the 4×400m relay record.

Logan has written to the USATF Men’s Track & Field chairman John Chaplin to request that the record is brought up for reconsideration at the domestic governing body’s 2008 annual meeting scheduled for December 3-7 in Reno, Nevada.

However, USATF only have the power to annul a national record—for the world record to be altered the IAAF, the sport’s international governing body, would need to rule.

FRAUDULENT MEANS

“Removing this record is the right thing to do, pure and simple,” Logan said in a statement.

“We have no interest in a record that the facts—not rumors—have exposed as being achieved by fraudulent means by at least one athlete on the team.

“Obviously, Tyree Washington and Michael Johnson played no part in the doping activities of others, and it is a shame that they may suffer as a result.

“But our message is clear—compete clean, win clean and break records clean. Or get out of our sport and out of our record books.”

Young was banned for life from the sport in 2004 for a second doping violation and on June 17 this year, after he admitted doping, USADA retroactively invalidated his results back to January 1, 1999.

American records are officially ratified or de-ratified once a year at the USATF’s annual meeting, with the Men’s Track & Field Committee overseeing the men’s records.

If put forward for de-ratification, and approved by the Records Committee in December, the American record would go to Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds and Michael Johnson, who ran 2:54.29 to win the 1993 world title in Germany.

(Reporting by Simon Evans and Gene Cherry; editing by Ken Ferris)