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Nov-30-2005
LAGAT PUSHES AHEAD WITH LEGAL ACTION
by David Monti
(c) Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved
Two-time Olympic medalist Bernard Lagat continued his legal fight with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) today when his lawyers delivered documents to the Cologne Regional Court in Germany. The Kenyan-born American is pressing the case that he was harmed in 2003 when a preliminary --and untimately
incorrect-- drug testing result was leaked by the Kenyan athletics federation to a journalist, forcing his ouster from the Kenyan team at the IAAF World Championships in Athletics.
"I was hoping that the IAAF and WADA would provide an apology for what occurred to me in 2003 under their jurisdiction," said Lagat in a prepared statement circulated to journalists today. "However, none has been forthcoming. The IAAF statement that was offered on 2 November was completely inadequate."
On that day, the IAAF commented on a proposal made by a German court which suggested that Lagat would be exonerated of any doping offense if he dropped his lawsuit seeking compensation from the IAAF. The IAAF found that proposal to its liking.
"We are very pleased and we expect the athlete to accept it as well," IAAF spokesman Nick Davies said at the time.
But to Lagat, the proposal made no sense. He had already been exonerated when the test on his "B" sample, done by the same laboratory in Cologne, tested negative, ending is suspension. Furthermore, Lagat maintains that the test itself was suspect.
"There was no recognition or acknowledgement from either the IAAF or WADA that the testing procedures for EPO that I was subjected to in 2003 were far from failsafe and that an innocent athlete, who in this case was myself, could be wrongly accused of having taken performance-enhancing drugs," said Lagat. "There is a significant body of scientific work which indicate that the shortcomings of the tests used in 2003 were known at the time of my erroneous result and I will be looking to introduce this material during the course of my court action."
But the crux of the suit is how Lagat should be compensated for being forced to miss the 2003 World Championships, where he was a favorite to medal in the 1500m, and the lucrative competition and endorsement possibilities which would have followed.
"My period of suspension included the 2003 World Championships and I think it is fair to say that my competition record before and after this event suggests that I would have had a very good chance of a medal in the 1500 metres, perhaps even the gold," said Lagat who earned the silver medal at the Athens Olympics. Earlier in that year he had won the silver medal at the IAAF World Indoor Championships, won the mile at the Prefontaine Classic, and ran a season's best 3:30.55 at the Weltklasse in Zürich just one week before the 1500m preliminaries were held at the World Championships.
Lagat, who lives in Tucson, Ariz., with his wife Gladys is coached by James Li, the head men's cross country coach at the University of Arizona.
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