Reallocation of 4x400m medals uncertain »

Reallocation of 4x400m medals uncertain

Jamaica and the Bahamas will have to wait to see if the International Olympic Committee's stripping of the United States' 4x400 metres relay team at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, will result in medals for them.

The IOC stripped the Americans of the medals on Saturday after an admission from Antonio Pettigrew that he was taking performance-enhancing substances at the time, but they stopped short of a reallocation of the medals.

Former World 400 metres champion Pettigrew - now retired - admitted in May during the trial of his Jamaica-born former coach Trevor Graham that he had used performance-enhancing drugs for about six years.

Nigeria finished second in the event and could earn the gold medals under a reallocation, with Jamaica being upgraded from third to second for the silver medal and the Bahamas up from fourth to third for the bronze medal.

But an IOC spokeswoman said the reallocation of the medals would be decided once an ongoing investigation into the San Francisco-based BALCO laboratory, responsible for providing top athletes with drugs, was complete.

"It forms part of a wider piece of work ... on the BALCO case," IOC Communications manager Giselle Davies said.

She noted that medal reallocations arising from BALCO would be resolved as one big case rather than on an individual basis.

The 4x400m gold medal is the sixth American medal from the Sydney Games lost to doping in the past eight months, after sprinter Marion Jones - now retired and married to Barbadian sprinter Obadele Thompson - was stripped of her five medals due to her doping confession last year.

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