Athletics: Double sprint champion named as drug cheat

COLORADO SPRINGS - Double world sprint champion Kelli White and five other American athletes have tested positive for the stimulant modafinil, the US Olympic Committee said yesterday.

White, sprinter Chryste Gaines, hurdlers Sandra Glover, Chris Phillips and Eric Thomas, and hammer thrower John McEwen tested positive at the US or world athletics championships, the committee said.

White, like her fellow athletes, is contesting the case, but could be stripped of her 100m and 200m world titles.

The first American woman to win the sprint double, she said she was prescribed the banned stimulant for the sleep disorder narcolepsy - a claim that international track officials have ridiculed since word emerged of other athletes using it.

McEwen also failed a test for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG).

The discovery of the previously undetectable steroid touched off an international doping scandal involving not only athletics but US professional baseball and football.

Top track athletes Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, and baseball star Barry Bonds have testified before a federal grand jury in San Francisco.

The jury is investigating a California laboratory suspected of being the source of the steroid.

The Olympic committee said White failed tests for modafinil at the US and world championships.

Its announcement is the first official confirmation of her positive test at June's US championships.

The IAAF had already announced that she tested positive for the stimulant after winning the 100m at the world championships in Paris in August.

White's case and those of the other five athletes are under review by the US Anti-Doping Agency.

Gaines and 400m hurdlers Glover and Thomas failed a test for the stimulant at the American championships, and Phillips, a 110m hurdler, tested positive for modafinil at the world championships, the committee said.

McEwen failed tests for modafinil and THG at the US championships.

He is the first American to be named as testing positive for the steroid. Previously, US officials had said there were four American positives for the steroid, without giving details.

Britain's European 100m champion Dwain Chambers has been identified as testing positive, and US media reports have named world indoor 1500m record holder Regina Jacobs.

The Olympic committee added that cyclist Adham Sbeih tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO) at the US Cycling Federation elite track national championships in August.

All the athletes are disputing their cases. Any suspensions or other sanctions will come only after those appeals are exhausted.

- REUTERS

The drugs

* Tetrahydrogestrinone is a banned steroid which had been tweaked by chemists to make it undetectable in normal dope tests.

* Modafinil increases alertness, and improves attention and concentration. It reduces mental fatigue.