Athletics News: The United States faces the embarrassment of being stripped of another 4x400 metres gold medal because of doping, after Calvin Harrison was suspended for two years.

Harrison was found guilty of using the stimulant modafinil at the US championships last year and is likely to miss the Olympics in Athens starting next week.

The offence would have incurred only a public warning, because modafinil was not on the proscribed list at the time, but it was his second positive test for a stimulant so he received a heavier penalty. His only hope of competing in Athens is an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The CAS has established a special court in Athens and could fast-track Harrison's case. But his lawyer said he might not appeal.

Harrison's positive test means the US relay team that won gold in the 2003 world championships in Paris face losing their medals because all of Harrison's results from the positive test onwards will be nullified. The other runners in Paris were Tyree Washington, Derrick Brew and Jerome Young.

Harrison was also part of the winning 4x400m team in the Sydney Olympics, who are almost certain to be stripped of their medals by the International Association of Athletics Federations because of a positive drugs test by Young in 1999, which came to light only this year.

Harrison said the system was unfair because his first offence came while he was still in high school in 1993. He tested positive for Sudafed at the junior national championships in Washington.

"The evergreen trees messed with my sinuses," he said. "I took the pill and then I was busted."

Last year the banned ingredient in Sudafed, pseudoephedrine, was removed from the prohibited list.

He probably feels doubly unlucky because his second positive test emerged after modafinil showed up in a re-examination of analysis collected when the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) reviewed tests taken at the US championships when it learned of the new designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone.

Calvin's twin brother, Alvin, also a 400m runner, faces a lifetime ban based on Balco evidence received by USADA. A date has not been fixed for his hearing.

Guardian Service