US Track Stars Lose Medals for Cheating with Drugs

According to a report released by CBS News,in an effort to show that they will get tough on athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs, the US Olympic men’s track team (Antonio Pettigrew, Calvin Harrison, Michael Johnson & Alvin Harrison) have lost all of their medals after initial tests confirmed that Pettigrew took a banned performance-enhancing drug.

Interestingly, Johnson gave back what would have been his fifth gold medal of a fantastic career because he felt “cheated, betrayed and let down” by Pettigrew, who, in addition to losing his medals, also loses his seventh place finish result in the individual 400 meter race in the Sydney Olympics and is also banned from the upcoming Beijing Olympics. In fact, Pettigrew, who has recently retired from track & field, will not be allowed to participate in the Beijing Olympics “in any capacity”, including as a coach or technical official.

In response to the gold medals being stripped, USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said “We support the action taken today by the IOC. Athletes who make the unacceptable choice to cheat should recognize that there will be consequences. Those consequences can be severe, including the loss of medals and results. We’re in full support of the action. In other matters like this, in the past, we’ve worked with the IOC to make (sure that) certain medals are returned and we’ll do so again”.

Complicating the saga around sprinting is the fact that Olympic officials are hesitant to give Jones’ gold medal to Greek sprinter Katerina Thanou, who is in the center of a doping allegation herself from the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.