OTTEY REINSTATED BY IAAF AFTER FAULTY DRUG

MONTE CARLO, Monaco -- Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey had her
two-year ban for steroid use lifted Monday after an international
track panel said the lab improperly tested her urine sample.

The decision meant the former world champion and Olympic silver
medalist was immediately eligible to compete.

The IAAF, track and field's world governing body, said in a statement
that its three-man arbitration panel had decided after a hearing last
month "there were not the grounds to maintain the suspension of
Merlene Ottey from competition."

"Accordingly, the suspension . . . ended with immediate effect," the
statement said.

The IAAF said the panel found fault with the testing laboratory, which
"had not taken into sufficient account factors regarding the specific
gravity of the sample which as a result did not exceed the IOC
[International Olympic Committee] recommended reporting threshold."

Monday's ruling was the second issued by the IAAF in a week in a drug
case involving a prominent athlete. Last week, it upheld the two-year
suspension of Javier Sotomayor of Cuba, the only high jumper to clear
8 feet, for cocaine use. That decision appeared to knock Sotomayor out
of September's Olympics in Sydney.

Ottey, winner of 34 individual medals in major international
championships, hopes to compete in the Sydney Olympics at 40.

Ottey, a former world 200-meter champion, runnerup in the 100 and 200
at the 1996 Olympics and one of the most decorated athletes in the
sport, tested positive for the steroid nandrolone at a meet in
Switzerland in July 1999. She denied taking the drug and was cleared
by the Jamaican federation. The IAAF refused to accept the Jamaicans'
ruling and sent her case to its arbitration panel, composed of
Christoph Vedder of Germany, Monty Hacker of South Africa and James
Murphy of the United States.

Nandrolone is a steroid that is easily detectable in standard drug
tests. But there has been a spate of positive nandrolone cases around
the world over the past year, prompting speculation that the drug is
contained in nutritional supplements.

In March, the IAAF said it would conduct a research project to
determine whether food supplements and herbal preparations can trigger
positive tests for nandrolone and other substances.