Kathy Jager fights two-year IAAF ban for doping

By Ken Stone

America's Kathy Jager returned from the World Veterans Athletic Championships in England last August with two golds, three silvers and a bronze medal -- the world's fastest woman in her age group.

In her first international competition, Jager had beaten the world record holder in the W55 100 meters by nearly a half-second. She beat the same German legend by three-tenths in the 200.

But her Gateshead triumphs were eclipsed by emotional trauma.

Jager, 56, endured a torrent of media scrutiny after an absurd accusation -- being called a man by an Australian competitor. The mother of two and grandmother of four became the "sex row athlete" of the British press. The laughable charge was swiftly refuted.

But her greatest indignity awaited. Back home in Glendale, Arizona, a week after Gateshead, she was notified by mail that she had tested positive for "a prohibited substance" August 1 at WAVA -- making her the oldest track athlete in history to be accused of doping.

"I was shocked," Jager said from her home near Phoenix. "How could I have tested positive?"

The answer was to be found in the light-green tablets she'd been taking to regulate her hormones and relieve such postmenopausal symptoms as hot flashes and mood swings. By doctor's orders, she was taking daily 1.25 mg tablets of Estratest HS, a widely used product by Solvay Pharmaceuticals.The generic name for the medication is esterified estrogens and methyltestosterone.

Methyltestosterone -- a synthetic form of the natural product -- is listed as an androgenic anabolic steroid in Schedule 1, Part I, of the IAAF's Prohibited Substances list (available in PDF format at Inside the IAAF. Go to Structures, then Commissions, then Doping Guidelines) Ironically, she had been taking Estratest HS (which stands for half-strength, the lowest dosage given) for only two months. Jager says her female physician had switched her medication from the more common Premarin and Provera because that combination had lost its potency through interactions with other medications Jager took to avert a recurrence of kidney stones and high blood pressure.

"So I hadn't even been on it very long and never looked at the chemical name," said Jager (who pronounces her Dutch name JAY-ger). "You don't look at all your medicine and say, Gee, what's it got in it? Your doctor prescribes it, and it's working and you don't have the symptoms. And you assume that's what you need."

In fact, when Jager was drug-tested at Gateshead, she voluntarily named all her medications. "I went there unknowing -- figuring, Well, I'm not taking anything," she said. "I don't hardly drink caffeine.... I wrote all these medicines down (during the drug test). And I wrote what they were for. So they had a complete list of everything I was taking. Obviously I wasn't trying to hide anything.

"There was no intent (to cheat)."

She strongly objects to any suggestion that she used the tablets to gain an artificial advantage, saying: "I know I won those races fair and square -- and I ran only with my own womanpower and determination."

The IAAF demanded an explanation within 10 days. Jager and her doctor sent it, and later applied for a medical exemption for Estratest.

Then she waited. And waited. The IAAF didn't respond until December 10 via USATF lawyer Jill Pilgrim -- some four months later -- leaving Jager in a hellish private limbo. Jager went back to taking her nonperforming hormone replacement instead of the "illegal" one.

"All of a sudden I get this letter in the mail... (saying) that my explanations were not acceptable (to the IAAF)," she said. "Because a doctor prescribes it or that you did not take it for any (athletic) enhancement are not reasons that are legitimate.

"I mean, what is a legitimate reason? There is no such legitimate reason (to the IAAF)."

The IAAF handed the case over to USATF, which mandated a hearing -- and forced her to find a lawyer. Fortunately, an attorney friend volunteered services pro bono -- charging Jager only for phone calls and postage. The hearing before the USATF's three-person doping board took place in early March more than 600 miles away -- in Denver, Colorado.

There she repeated her case:

-- Neither the IAAF nor USATF had ever informed her of the banned drugs or the fact a medical exemption process existed that allows athletes to take banned drugs out of medical necessity.

-- Masters athletes shouldn't be held to drug-test standards geared for Olympic aspirants and national-class athletes in their teens and twenties.

"I'm not a stupid person.' said Jager, a registered nurse since 1982, "but I was pretty innocent, a novice (who didn't begin masters track until she was 50.) It didn't occur to me to check to see if some of these (medications) might be prohibited.... In essence, I was unprepared. If I were 18 years old, and I tested positive for this substance, (she'd understand the fuss). But I'm 56, and I legitimately need hormone replacements."

Moreover, Jager says, another American sprinter recently told her she also has been taking Estratest by doctor's decree -- unaware of its illegal status.

Jager says she comprehends the pressures that make cheating more likely among open athletes -- "So I understand ... the reason for having this law. But we're all lumped into one big group. One-size-fits-all doesn't work when you have special medical needs as masters athletes.

"We're compared equally (with youngsters) -- and we can't be compared equally."

USATF ultimately agreed with Jager. But two months later -- on May 8 -- the IAAF opened the wound by posting its monthly newsletter on its Web site.

On Page 8, in its regular "Positive cases in athletics" section, the IAAF listed one Michael Tietz -- a 10.5 British sprinter -- and Kathleen Jager. For the first time, her identity was public knowledge. On May 11, the Associated Press distributed worldwide a six-paragraph dispatch that began:

LONDON (AP) -- Kathy Jager, a 56-year-old American who set two world sprint records for her age group at last year's World Veterans' Championships, has been stripped of her medals and suspended for two years after testing positive for an anabolic steroid.

The report was wrong on several counts. (She hadn't set two world records, for example, and nobody asked for her medals back.) But it finally brought the case into the open.USATF, meanwhile, had been working behind the scenes to give Jager a break.

On June 4, 2000, Jager says, the USATF Executive Board will have a conference call and follow the recommendations of the doping panel and grant Jager "early reinstatement" for USA competition. Jager says USATF chief executive officer Craig Masback and USATF president Patricia Rico back her full reinstatement.

Jager says she intends to compete at the mid-August USATF Masters National Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon. She also hopes to gain a medical exemption from the IAAF -- so that she can return to taking Estratest and still compete in WAVA international meets, including the 2001 world meet in Brisbane, Australia.

Ken Weinbel, chairman of the USATF Masters Committee, didn't learn that Jager was the American who had tested positive at WAVA until early April -- when news releases told of how Jager was set to compete in a handicap women's 100-meter mixed-age race at the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in California -- and someone in USATF told Weinbel that Jager was under a competition ban. Jager -- who at first didn't think a special exhibition race qualified under the IAAF ban -- quietly withdrew from the race.

But Weinbel, an M70 hammer thrower, swung a hammer on her behalf, writing to National Masters News:

"It is a concern that Kathy's case could very well be repeated by other women of middle age. The policies of the IAAF doping tests for women are to be seriously questioned. The lack of a USATF educational and advisement program for masters/veterans track and field needs to be seriously questioned."

Weinbel wrote that he has begun to urge members of the USATF Executive Committee, the IAAF Veterans Committee, IAAF Council and IAAF Doping Commission "to address Masters/Veterans doping program issues at their future committee meetings."

He concluded: "The present system which is designed for open and elite athletes is not applicable for senior-age athletes and needs to be completely revamped or discarded."

But even if Jager's private problems are resolved, she has become determined to publicly challenge a system she considers clueless about the special needs of masters athletes.

How clueless?

The Times of London quoted an IAAF spokesman as saying: "Why someone of her age would want to use steroids is beyond me. She said she used this substance for hormone problems.... Maybe she did use it for medication. I don't know. But presumably the doping panel did not accept this as justification."

Kathy and her husband, Carl, further argued in a May 12 press release: "Beyond the inequity demonstrated in this case, the situation raises serious gender and age discrimination issues.'

Jager was feeling better about her predicament after it became public knowledge -- and began getting support from friends. She even can joke about it a bit.

"My daughter said: `When are they gonna stop picking on you, Mom?' ''

It was Mother's Day in America when I last chatted with Jager, a woman of strong Christian faith.

"I want something really positive to come out of this," Jager told me. "I'm a positive person, and there is a purpose for this beyond what we can imagine."

(A version of this article was written for Athletics Weekly and June 2000 National Masters News.)

Kathy Jager at Gateshead