Another one...Pettigrew

[Guest]

Tyson Gay's personal best is 9.84, which is .01 out of the range I think it is humanly possible to run. I have stated that 9.85-9.90 could be run by the most freakish black athletes on the end of the bell curve a few times a century.

Your declaration that 9.85 - 9.90 can only be run a "few times a century" (LOL) is based on recordsthat are decades old. Records set by OTHER PEOPLE, during a DIFFERENT GENERATION, DIFFERENT TIME, and DIFFERENT ERA.


Your theory is solely driven by your compulsion toexplain away the chasmic disparities in elite times, by any means necessary. I can explain the disparity easily.Non-blacksprinters simply lack that sixth gear, or can't maintain their 5th gear past 60 yards.That's it. If this realityhasn't changed for theother races by now,it unfortunately never will.


Most people have grown to learn/realize and accept this OBVIOUS phenomena. Otherwishful thinkers, whosechests are welled with unabashed racial pride (and there's nothing wroing with that, of course), have chosen toventure into empty yet verbose,illogical, nonsensical meandering, creative writing exercises to try to "explain" their baseless theories. I'm sure some of those theorists have realized this phenomena a looong time ago, but rather play naivein an effort to show strength andsolidarity.


Morne Nagel, the fastest 60m white guy ever (6.48), couldn't crack 10.13. Harálabos Papadiás, the second fastest(6.50), couldn't crack 10.15.Vitaliy Savin (6.51, 10.08), Aléxandros Terzián (6.51, 10.20),Aléxandros Yenovélis (6.51, 10.15), Yeóryios Theorídis (6.51, 10.17), Matthew Shirvington (6.52, 10.03), Andrey Yepishin (6.52, 10.10), Craig Pickering (6.55, 10.14), and on and on and on could barely crack 10.15. It just is what it is.


Of the sprinters who went sub 10 in the past 3 years:


Marcus Brunson (6.46, 9.99), Leonard Scott (6.46, 9.91), Olu Fasuba (6.49, 9.85), Richard Thompson (6.51, 9.93), Samuel Francis (6.54, 9.99), Francis Obikwelu (6.54, 9.86), Tyson Gay (6.55, 9.84), Asafa Powell (6.56, 9.74), Travis Padgett (6.56, 9.96), Walter Dix (6.59, 9.93), andWallace Spearmon (6.70, 9.96). With the exception of Brunson and Scott, elite white 60m sprinters can hang for a race or 2. They (or any other race of people, for that matter) just don't have the top-end speed to compete with blacks atthe 100 or 200 meter level. Once you hit 400 meters, it's more about endurance, so they can hang.. but in the shorter distances, noother race can.

the best times without roids from elite blacks per decade would be in the 9.90-10 flat range. The best white times per decade without the juice IMO would be 10.00-10.10, with a couple 9.95-10 flat times per century from absolute white freaks.

Blacks have already run MUCH faster than the times you ascribe to them, andwhites haveNEVER run the times you ascribe to them.That's all anyone needs to know to see where your agenda lies.

Marion Jones once used a full page in her auto-biographical book for one sentence stating

"I don't use performance enhancing drugs."

Victor Conte testified under oath, and under the threat of perjury charges that Marion started usingPED's during the last week of August, 1999. Marion testified, after she was already caught and headed to prison, and under the threat or more perjury charges, that she started the first week of September, 1999. Their weeks were a little off, but they both agreed that it was immediately after she returned home from the 1999 World Championships in Spain. Do you know what that means? Her clean 1997,1998, and pre-Spain 1999times, the 10.65, 10.70, 10.71, 10.71, 10.72, 10.72, 10.72, and 6.95 60m were faster than her dirty, post-Balcotimes.


Therefore, excluding Flo Jo, the female FAT record went from 11.07 in 1972 to Marion's 10.65. The female record crumbles almost a half second (.42), but the men can't reduce theirs by .06? Yea.. sure.

 

[SteveB]

Non-black sprinters simply lack that sixth gear, or can't maintain their 5th gear past 60 yards. 

They (or any other race of people, for that matter) just don't have the top-end speed to compete with blacks at the 100 or 200 meter level.

Kenteris could hang. He was the freakin 200m Olympic and World Champion in 2000-2001 and he used PEDs. According to you Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith, Mel Lattany, Stanley Floyd, Sam Graddy, etc. (all black) had no top end speed either because they would been blown away by the sprinters of the last 10 years.Edited by: SteveB

 

[Van_Slyke_CF]

Marion Jones cheated and was caught.

Florence Griffith-Joyner wasn`t caught, but paid for it with her life.

Maximus wrote:

"Her clean 1997, 1998, and pre-Spain 1999 times, the 10.65, 10.70, 10.71, 10.71, 10.72, 10.72, 10.72, and 6.95 60m were faster than her dirty, post-Balco times."

And did it every occur to you, genius, that Marion Jones was `roiding up before, became concerned at improvements in the testing, and turned to BALCO to keep getting something that she hoped would be undetectable? Marion Jones was dirty in 1997, 1998, and 1999, but she simply didn`t get caught. Her times for those years are all bull**it.

"Therefore, excluding Flo Jo, the female FAT record went from 11.07 in 1972 to Marion's 10.65. The female record crumbles almost a half second (.42), but the men can't reduce theirs by .06? Yea.. sure."

This is an idiotic statement. Of course one should expect women to improve their times to a more dramtic extent than men from the 1970s onwards, and it doesn`t take numbers to figure out why, just common sense. Maximus, I`ll give you an "opportunity" to find the answer by thinking about what opportunities women had in almost all sports three or more decades ago as compared to men.

You strike me as an intelligent person, but you`ve got your head up your arse here.

 

[ToughJ.Riggins]

I don't know why you care so much Maximus. Me, SteveB and others have our "theories" which we have admitted are such. The great majority of us have agreed with you Maximus, that blacks are faster than whites, but just not by as much as you think they are. So we are willing to give blacks their due.

I don't see why you despise this site so much "Texas Tech" that you keep coming on here to tell us that I am absolutely wrong that blacks are 0.10-0.15 seconds faster than whites "clean" over 100 meters and that it is hands down 0.30 or so. Steroids are clearly playing a role IMO.

3 Men had gone sub 10 electronic timed non-altitude from 1976-1988. Now I have checked again, 51 men have gone sub 10 electronic timed non-altitude from 1988-2008, when the training and nutrition methods are completely the same in the current period as the latter. If you do the math correctly adjusting for difference in time span that is just over 10 times the amount of men running sub 10 today as in the previous "very recent era."

Black sprinters have improved their times dramatically from the 1980s to today, but white sprinters have not at all! IMO steroids were very rare in track up until the late 1980s except with steroid testing on athletes from the old Soviet Bloc nations. The difference IMO is that steroids are working better on blacks than whites.

So lets say theoretically that Gay is clean b/c of the incredible scrutiny he is under, that would make Gay's record time .16 better than the white record. The amount of guys dropping sub 9.9s in recent years is just insane. We should have reached our human limits of "dramatic improvement" in the short sprint in track for the elite athletes in the late 1970s, but times keep dramatically dropping.

As I had stated I think there is a chance that Tyson Gay is clean, despite being .08 faster than Carl Lewis's PB time before the Ben Johnson bust. FYI Lewis was considered "a mere 15 years ago" to be the greatest track athlete of to ever live even above Jesse Owens in most minds. I highly doubt that it is humanly possible to take off a full .2 seconds off of Lewis's pre-Ben Johnson era PB time in a mere 20 years. Lewis has more track gold medals than any man to ever live

There is a seriously tarnished reputation of American track stars and there is a new American Pilot program to prevent cheating, so just "maybe" Gay is clean. But I think you are very naive to think these Jamaican guys (drugs are huge in Jamaica) or any guy that is running consistent sub 10s is clean. These sprinters are dropping their times like flies. Edited by: ToughJ.Riggins

 

[Guest]

Non-blacksprinters simply lack that sixth gear, or can't maintain their 5th gear past 60 yards.

They (or any other race of people, for that matter) just don't have the top-end speed to compete with blacks atthe 100 or 200 meter level.

Kenteris could hang. He was the freakin 200m Olympic and World Champion in 2000-2001 and he used PEDs. According to you Carl Lewis, Calvin Smith, Mel Lattany, Stanley Floyd, Sam Graddy, etc. (all black) had no top end speed either because they would been blown away by the sprinters of the last 10 years.

Um,obviously they did have top-end speed. What other races could hang with them during their era? I've already clearly pointed out the OBVIOUS generational progression of athletes in later era's.. in sprinting and other sports alike.

 

[GiovaniMarcon]

I think this thread has gradually turned into something where we hear those who agree with us, and we hear those who disagree with us, but everything that comes out of the people who disagree with us (regardless of what side we're on) sounds like "lah-lah-lah-lah-lah"...

I will say this, though -- if black sprinters get to use PEDs then I say whites should either also get to use PEDs, or else get an extra motivation, like, having a tiger chasing after them in their lanes.

I'm sure they'd win all the time after that.

White sprinters have nothing to be ashamed of.

Whites in general, I believe, have nothing to be ashamed of other than slavery, and perhaps

Oh Vanilla, you so cray-zay.

 

[Van_Slyke_CF]

Maximus: Do you really think Marion Jones was clean in 1997, 1998 and 1999 up to the particular time you mention?

You expect us to believe that she was slower using BALCO`s crap and kept using it?

She was FASTER before turning to BALCO but kept going to them in order to...what...err...ruin her life and career?

I said this:

"And did it every occur to you, genius, that Marion Jones was `roiding up before, became concerned at improvements in the testing, and turned to BALCO to keep getting something that she hoped would be undetectable? Marion Jones was dirty in 1997, 1998, and 1999, but she simply didn`t get caught. Her times for those years are all bull**it."

Care to comment?

Florence Griffith Joyner, Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Linford Christie, Kelli White, Chryste Gaines, Maurice Greene, Justin Gatlin...an endless list of black chumpions who cheated. Frauds, liars, garbage.

You can add the Katrin Krabbe, Costas Kenteris and other white cheaters and frauds to the list, too.

The simple fact of the matter is that just about every champion in the 100 and 200m for many years now has been a fraud.

It didn`t end with BALCO. There has been another one or more in place to help the so-called best sprinters for years.

The Jamaicans will get caught. It is just a matter of time.

Perhaps this begs the question: Why should we care?

 

[white lightning]

Jeremy Wariner has already run a 43.50 from last season. He will be primed to take it to another level. It was a great race by L.M. but JW will beat him in the olympics because he can race sub 44 seconds like no one on earth.

Maximus needs to just give up. We have our opinions and you have yours. You are not going to change anyones mind on this board. There are alot of track fans here as well. Again, why do you come here other than to piss people off? I don't care about your stupid arguments. You need to contribute something worthwhile or be banned period. I'm tired of 99% of your posts being pro black/ anti white. You have very little time left buddy. Go to the other boards and continue your lovefest and leave here. You will be banned if you don't stop. Me or Don should have done it a long time ago.

Then you will be like a little kid and resign under a new username. Get a life. We root for who we want to becaue like other races, we have pride in our european heritage and traditions. Get a clue man!Edited by: white lightning

 

[albinosprint]

maximus,

ever hear of roy martin? ran a 20.13 for a HS record and never got any faster. that's the thing with blacks, they tend to mature faster and run great time early and never get better. white mature a bit slower and have there break through races later in life. look at walter dix, current HS record holder has only bested his HS PR by .13 seconds.so you could say that bolt at 19 was maxed out and started taking drugs to lower his PR's

 

[freedom1]

Yeah, the blacks maturing faster concept was in my mind when I made my last post. My personal experience having gone to a majority black high school was that they were pretty much full grown by the time they were 17. I'll have to check if there's any empirical data on that. I think J. Phillip Rushton might have something on it.

 

[Observer]

Actually, I kind of like Maximus' posts when I can see that he has gone through some effort to dig through historical data. But I am an old fart, and so it is not difficult to see that data selectively extracted primarily from the last 20 years is not strong evidence of a genetic 0.3 sec. / 100m sprinting speed difference.

I did a little bit of analysis on my own, with someone the age and height of Mr. Bolt as my subject matter. I do not wish to cast suspicion on him or anyone, but only to maybe add a little perspective. I did not have data on Jamaican black males, so I used demographics from the United States.

- a black male aged 21 years 295 days (Usain Bolt's age) is age-equivalent to a caucasian male of 23.75 years.
- Usain Bolt was already 6'5" when he was 15, if I remember correctly --- almost 7 years.
- he has been an elite athlete since 2003 ---- longer ago than Jeremy Wariner's "elite" status.

Maximus, if we suddenly saw Jeremy Wariner running 200's at 2 x 0.31 faster than his previous PR (i.e., 19.57), wouldn't some skepticism be justified? I think the comparison between Wariner and Bolt is fair, because physiologically they are probably within a few months of each other according to demographics. Bolt is a great talent, but for your comparison of the time drops by Batman and others, it would seem more appropriate to make comparisons to other athletes who were already competing at an elite level for some period of time, and of a similar physiological age.

I would be interested in if someone can compile a listing of any athletes in any sprinting type of sport who have made such dramatic gains when already competing at an elite level. I think there may be a few, but most of these were considered dopers.

 

[white is right]

This is a story from the Daily Mail online from Jeff Powell. Really this story says what everybody but Minimus thinks on this board, you don't have to be a tinfoil hat guy or a Grand Wizard to have these views...Why Bolt from the blue is raising an eyebrow or two

Last updated at 8:26 PM on 01st June 2008



Ben Johnson's wry smile will be even wider this weekend after a lesser-known Jamaican shattered the world 100metres record held by another fellow countryman.

Asafa Powell is not his favourite brother islander, so Johnson was not reaching for the telephone to offer his commiserations as 21-year-old newcomer Usain Bolt became the newest fastest man on Earth in 9.72 seconds.

Scroll down for more
Bolt

Usain Bolt of Jamaica celebrates after setting a new world record in the men's 100 metres

Powell, in his insistence that he ran clean to the previous mark of 9.74sec, has been just as quick to condemn Johnson for taking the steroids that caused him to be stripped of the world record and Olympic gold medal won in Seoul 20 years ago.

'Asafa is too self-righteous,' says Johnson. 'He has every right to defend himself but not to point a finger at me. I know as well as anyone what goes on down there in Jamaica most of the time.'

The irony is not lost on Johnson that Bolt came out of nowhere in the week he blew the lid off the extent of the steroids culture in athletics.

The exclusive interview Big Ben granted me in his adopted Canada sent seismic shockwaves through the Olympic movement just weeks before the Beijing Games, claiming that virtually all the top athletes use drugs.

Nor is Bolt's dash for glory the only cause of much eye-watering among the track and field fraternity.

It is not often that Johnson finds himself on the same page, metaphorically, as Lord Moynihan, the chairman of the British Olympics Association, who is a ferocious anti-drugs campaigner. Yet both are appalled by the gruesome lengths to which many of today's runners will go to elude the drugs police.

Johnson has revealed to me one practice which is as nauseating as it is excruciating. Readers of a squeamish disposition might be advised to skip the next few sentences.

When selected for a test, cheating athletes pee down the lavatory. They then refill their bladders with clean urine and pass that as their sample. Often it is their own urine, collected and stored when they are off steroids, but sometimes it is the urine of relatives or friends who have never used drugs.

The men use a catheter to force the urine back up the urethra. The females refill the bladder by syringing the replacement urine through a tiny tube.

Ben Johnson: 'Whatever anyone says about me and steroids, I would never have done that, never have risked the damage that could do to your body.'

Colin Moynihan: 'We've been told this is going on. We must find a way to stop it. This is not only illegal but disgusting.'

Still want to put your daughter (or son) on the track and field stage, Mrs Worthington?

Both men agree that blood, rather than urine, tests are the answer. Moynihan is privately urging the world and Olympic authorities to introduce them but Johnson says: 'They don't want to do it because it would catch nearly all the athletes and they know that would kill the golden goose which lays all those millions of dollars.'

Officials maintain they are doing all they can to combat drug abuse but Johnson compares those claims to the reluctance of major league sports in America to introduce testing programmes in line with other sports worldwide.

Steroids are reported to be rife in gridiron football. Baseball's all time home-run hitter Barry Bonds not only has an asterix against his record but is under indictment, along with an Olympian string of U.S. runners as a consequence of the BALCO laboratory trials, on drugs-related charges.

Johnson added: 'The Americans are ignorant. The dads spend a thousand dollars a game on seats and food to take their kids to see games played and history made but the owners of the teams know their players are taking drugs.

'Big bucks are at stake but that's not all. The American mentality is that they have to win. That's why they invent games which basically only they play, then they can declare themselves the world champions.'

There are echoes of Johnson's claim in these pages on Saturday that the Americans set him up in Seoul, lacing his drink with a near-lethal dose of one steroid he never used because they knew he would beat their own Carl Lewis to gold.

Few realists - never mind the cynics - will doubt that Johnson is justified in denouncing 'virtually all the top runners' as drugs cheats. Athletics, tainted as it is by those suspicions, will pray that its new 100m world record holder is as innocent as he seems.

A Bolt from the blue? Inevitably, fairly or not, eyebrows will be raised. Not least because Usain, a 200m specialist, was running only the fifth 100m race of his life.

Taking the stuff? As we watch the fastest men on earth hurtle out of their blocks in Beijing this August, we could hardly be blamed for wondering if they are taking the proverbial.

A rocky road for Lockett

Never heard of Gary Lockett? Nor had the world middleweight champion before he signed to defend his title against the 31- year-old Welshman.

Kelly Pavlik - America's heir to the throne of Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Hagler and Sugar Ray Robinson - could not pronounce Cwmbran, either.

Now, after several days in the eyeball-to-eyeball company of his challenger, the current darling of the U.S. rings knows a a good deal about life in a small Welsh town and the belief of one of its sons that his Rocky moment has arrived.

Lockett goes into Atlantic City's historic Boardwalk Hall on Saturday night, never having been paid more than £30,000 for any of his fights in the hardest game's smaller halls.

There have been 30 of them and of the 29 wins against one loss, 21 have been inflicted by knock-out. That record is not quite as impressive as the undefeated Pavlik's 29 stoppages in 33 victories - less so when weighed against the significantly inferior quality of Lockett's opposition - but it is good enough to establish him as the mandatory contender.

As such, he is viewed by Team Pavlik as something between an irritant and useful practice for a possible autumn megafight against a rather more celebrated British boxer, namely Joe Calzaghe.

Ironically, Lockett is trained by Joe's father Enzo. Yet even though a defeat for Pavlik might be most inconvenient, the Calzaghes are working and rooting for Gary to pull off one of the prize-ring's major upsets of recent times. Can he do It?

Lockett claims Pavlik is onedimensional so can be outboxed.

More realistically, he has no more than an old-fashioned puncher's outside chance against a champion who has been wobbled on his way to the top.

Even so, he would not be the first to overcome huge odds. One underdog who did just that was Jake La Motta, otherwise known as the Raging Bull.

So, even if it's for one Rocky night only, let's hear it for the fighting Welsh lamb.

No charm, just offensive

FIFA rascal Jack Warner says in one interview in Port-of- Spain that he will vote for England to host the 2018 World Cup; in another that the FA do not deserve it because of their arrogance and the flawed diplomacy which has made them so many enemies in Europe. Head coach Fabio Capello picks the super-famous David Beckham to captain England in the otherwise worthless match against Trinidad & Tobago last night, which began what the FA viewed as a charm offensive for their bid, then insists he would never have any truck with a public relations stunt.

In the Caribbean land of double speak, he who talks with forked tongue rules. In England, football lovers can only shake their heads in disbelief.

Friction writer

Andy Murray's autobiography - so he can write, then? - will be published by Random House on Wednesday. No, the title is not From the Cradle to the Shave. It is called Hitting Back.

Hitting back, you understand, against we in the media who might have had the temerity to suggest that he is not quite yet Pete Sampras, Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe, Rod Laver, Andre Agassi, Boris Becker and Roger Federer rolled into one.

Nor for the moment the new Tim Henman, even.

After his third-round defeat in the French Open by someone called Nicolas Almagro - and with Wimbledon fast approaching - shouldn't it be more tennis balls he started hitting back? Edited by: white is right

 

[Poacher]

Bolt has come out of nowhere to run a 9.72

In exactly the same way Eamon Sullivan swam a 21.28 in the 50 meter freestyle.

Many swimming records have been broken lately due to Speedo's new LZR racer swimsuit.

Was Bolt wearing some new high-tech spikes that we don't know about?

Yes, I suppose that it is possible that Bolt improved this much on his own, I won't completely discount the idea but jesus man how bad does it have to get before all of the black afflete apologists on this board (and there are a growing number of them) will admit the possibility that these men and women are cheating?

If Bolt had run a 9.60 what then? Still say he's clean?

 

[Guest]

Please don't insult my intelligence or the others here who are former athletes and follow the sport. You didn't even know who Trey Hardee was before I posted about him yesterday.

So what? Trey Hardee is a nobody.

In reality, even people who pay attention to track are not familiar with half the guys talked about here. I don't pay any attention to decathlon, and only know Clay. Not even sure if Pappas and Terek still compete.

 

[Guest]

Many swimming records have been broken lately due to Speedo's new LZR racer swimsuit.

Which means everybody who was faster than Sullivan before should be equally faster than him now. So where are all the guys going 20 seconds in 50 meters?

He either came into his prime this year or he's on drugs. It can't be the suit.

 

[Poacher]

He either came into his prime this year or he's on drugs. It can't be the suit.

Fair enough. But Sullivan was a decorated swimmer before the suit and is 22 (prime for a swimmer).

As far as Bolt is concerned he did run a 9.76 on May 3rd. Which makes his 9.72 slightly less shocking but I still believe he is using.

Pettigrew just returned his ill-gotten gold medal.

 

[freedom1]

http://www.harbornet.com/folks/theedrich/JP_Rushton/Race.htm

Data compiled by J. Phillipe Rushton.

 

[devans]

The gold for Pettigrew at the1991 World Championshipsis surely now questionable. Hebeat a man caslled Roger Black - by just 0.05 seconds - when he claimed his individual gold in 1991.

The disgraced athlete was also part of the <?:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region> team that beat Roger Black, Iwan Thomas, Jamie Baulch and Mark Richardson into second place in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Athens</st1lace></st1:City>. Pettigrew, Chris Jones, Tyree Washington and Jerome Young edged out the British quartet by just 0.18 seconds.

<?:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />
I appluad Michael Johnson for giving his medal back.

 

[white is right]

Well its the old saying"Long live the King the King is dead!" There will be a new Olympic champion in the 100 meters. Justin Gatlin had his appeal rejected. Here is the BBC story.....
Gatlin drugs ban appeal rejected
Justin Gatlin
Gatlin will fight on to have his sentence reduced

Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin has failed in his appeal to have his four-year drugs ban halved.

The American was hoping the Court of Arbitration for Sport would reduce his sentence which would have allowed him to compete in June's US Olympic trials.

The 26-year-old tested positive for excessive testosterone at the 2006 Kansas Relays.

It was his second doping violation but he insists he has never knowingly taken a performance-enhancing substance.

"I will continue to fight for my right to participate in the great sport of track and field in a time frame shorter than four years," stated Gatlin.

"I have never been involved in any intentional doping scheme."

Cas also rejected an appeal from the world athletics governing body, IAAF, to impose a life ban on Gatlin.

The only change to his four-year penalty was to the start of the term, with Cas pushing it forward from May to July 2006 because that was when Gatlin voluntarily accepted his provisional suspension.

The ban will be completed on 25 July 2010.


We are glad that it has come to a final resolution

USATF president Bill Roe

The IAAF was happy with the verdict.

"This result demonstrates the IAAF's determination to removethe scourge of doping from our sport," said the body's president Lamine Diack.

"There is no place for doped athletes in our sport."

The US Anti-Doping Agency said the outcome underlined that doping will not be accepted in sport.

"It's another strong reminder that sports are not going to tolerate doping but it is also going to be fair and reasonable in considering all of the factors in giving a sanction of significant magnitude of four years to a sprinter," said USADA chief executive Travis Tygart.

Gatlin based his appeal on the argument that his first failed drugs test, in 2001, should be rescinded because it was caused by a medicine he had been taking since childhood for attention deficit disorder.


BBC OLYMPICS BLOG
It isn't easy to see where the sport goes from here but at least there are some in the game still willing to believe, still willing to run clean

Matt Slater

Gatlin was suspended from competition for two years but the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the sport's governing body, reinstated him early in 2002.

The sprinter, however, was told a second offence would result in a life ban, which he only avoided in 2006 because of the "exceptional circumstances" surrounding his first fail and his cooperation with the authorities. He was given an eight-year ban instead.

That penalty was then reduced by a US arbitration panel to four years on 31 December 2007.

USA Track and Field president Bill Roe was relieved that a line could be drawn under the matter.

"This case has been complex and nuanced, and we are glad that it has come to a final resolution," he said.

"Athletes must take responsibility for the substances they put into their bodies, and must choose wisely the individuals with whom they associate."