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(Courtland Gray replies to Stone post)
Kathy Jager gets no relief -- no early USA
reinstatement
Kathy Jager’s gold medals from
Gateshead still hang in the family room of her home in
Glendale, Ariz. But her hopes for early reinstatement to
competition hang by less than a thread.
Dashing her hopes of racing this summer, USATF will not
allow the W55 world 100 and 200 champion to compete in
the United States until January 2001 at the earliest.
Jager, 56, was suspended for two years from international
competition after testing positive for the IAAF-banned
steroid methyltestosterone at the 1999 World Veterans
Athletics Championships, where she won six medals.
The banned drug was part of her hormone replacement
therapy for menopause symptoms called Estratest –
which Jager vehemently denies provided any athletic
advantage in its tiny 1.5-milligram-per-day quantities.
She said she learned June 6 through an e-mail to her
lawyer that USATF has attached several conditions to her
bid to compete domestically before the IAAF ban ends.
In a conference call June 4, the Executive Committee of
USATF chose to ignore the recommendation of its Doping
Hearing Board, which had urged Jager’s reinstatement
for U.S. competition while she completed a series of drug
tests.
"I thought it was going to be a cut-and-dried
thing," she said from her home near Phoenix. "I
was tremendously disappointed" in the USATF
rejection.
Instead, Jager must first complete a series of
out-of-competition drug tests, she said. The first test
was conducted just before Easter. The last will likely be
in December.
She also has other conditions to meet, which she hopes to
remove via talks with USATF.
In the meantime, Jager continues to shun her
doctor-prescribed Estratest and put up with
less-effective hormone replacement medication.
She’s also holding out hope that she can accept an
invitation to compete in a women’s 100-meter
exhibition race in the first weekend of the U.S. Olympic
Trials in Sacramento. Jager contends that the race is
merely "a fun promotion" of masters track and
doesn’t qualify as an official Trials event, since
Jager hasn’t met the Olympic Trials qualifying
standards in the women’s sprints.
She asks: "Do I have to get permission (from USATF)
for everything?"
In any case, Jager is relieved to be able to be open
about her plight, instead of being the mystery "drug
positive" from Gateshead.
"It helps to talk about it," she said.
"I’m not ashamed or embarrassed about it
–- because I’ve done nothing wrong."
She’s especially grateful to those sentiments of
support she’s received via the Internet and
elsewhere since the story broke May 11.
But she can’t shake the feeling of being unjustly
convicted –- suddenly "divorced" from her
sport without warning.
"It’s not about going (to meets) and setting
records," Jager said. "It’s about the
people. I’m not connected with (track). I miss the
camaraderie."
Jager aims to challenge the IAAF’s drug rules for
masters because "you can’t just ban
(medications) from everybody’s use. . . . It could
be any of us trapped in this nightmare."
In the meantime, Jager puts up with the blazing sun of
media scrutiny in scorching Arizona -– and looks
ahead to her eventual return to competition.
"I was out vaulting today," she said June 7.
"I’m doing my turn (at the top of the jump).
I’m not going to let anything keep me
discouraged."
Updated
version of this article
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