Gatlin set for challenge

Justin Gatlin is making another challenge against his drug suspension tomorrow in a bid to be allowed to compete at the USA Olympic trials in Eugene beginning next weekend.

The reigning Olympic 100metres champion lost his recent appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for his four-year suspension to be cut by half which would have allowed him to challenge for a place in the US team for Beijing,

Now in his hometown of Pensacola in Florida, a federal judge will decide whether the length of his ban contradicts the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Gatlin was initially banned for two years for an anti-doping violation in 2001 but reinstated by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) who accepted the substances he was using were for Attention Deficit Disorder which he suffered from.

The world governing body however retained the offence on his file and after testosterone was found in his body after a positive test at the Kansas Relays in May 2006, he was eventually banned for eight years by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Gatlin won an appeal in January reducing this to four years but saw his latest one to CAS at a hearing in New York to have that halved again, fail when they directed that his suspension should last for four years making the sprinter ineligible to compete until July 25, 2010.

Judge Lacey A. Collier who will hear his case again has meanwhile issued a restraining order against the US Olympic committee (USOC), USA Track and Field (USATF) the IAAF and USADA, from preventing him competing.

“They are each temporarily restrained from enforcing the current suspension from athletics competition against plaintiff Justin Gatlin or from otherwise using the suspension to prevent the plaintiff from participating in the Olympic trials commencing 27 June 2008,” said the order.