College Sports

Justin Gatlin, one of the world’s fastest sprinters, has given up after losing his most recent appeal to compete at the U.S. Olympic trials.

Gatlin, the defending Olympic 100-meter champion, lost his most recent appeal on June 26, and has decided not to further the case to the Supreme Court. He will continue to seek monetary damages from the U.S. Olympic Committee, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and other defendants. He claims that his first doping violation, in 2001, was flawed because he was taking prescribed medication for attention deficit disorder.

So now Gatlin will sit out the remainder of his suspension. I’m not surprised at the result of his various lawsuits. The different committees have had to take strong stances on illegal performance enhancing drugs. The violations worldwide in all areas of sports have been massive, and in some cases have threatened to do serious harm to the sports themselves. Look at cycling. It is a shell of what it once was, due to allegations and positive drug tests.

And while I have long been a Justin Gatlin fan, I think that to allow him to run would be sending a horrible message. His argument that his first violation was due to ADD medicine may be true. But even if it is, the second violation is the one that got him suspended for the duration. He knew what would happen if he was found guilty of any sort of drug violation. He associated himself with those who pushed performance enhancing drugs, all the while maintaining he was “clean.”

It caught up with him. It’s a shame, I doubt he needed the drugs to win. But he did the crime, and now he needs to do the time.