Lamine Diack

LUNTEREN, Netherlands AP):

After United States Olympic gold medal sprinter Antonio Pettigrew admitted he doped up as long as 11 years ago, the Inter-national Association of Athletics Associations (IAAF) is considering extending its limit on retroactive doping sanctions beyond the current eight years.

"He has confessed he was doping since 1997. We have a rule saying that we cannot go over eight years," IAAF president Lamine Diack said in a conference call Thursday. "We have to look, are we ready to have this rule changed?"

Last week, during the BALCO doping trial in San Francisco, Pettigrew said he took performance-enhancing substances since 1997, during a career in which he passed all doping tests.

Oxygen-boosting drug

Pettigrew testified that former coach Trevor Graham encouraged him in 1997 to inject human growth hormone and the oxygen-boosting drug EPO, which are both banned in track. Soon after, Pettigrew said, he began buying the drugs.

Graham was found guilty by a US court Thursday of lying to federal investigators about his relationship to a steroids dealer.

Together with Michael Johnson, Pettigrew won the 1,600 metres relay at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 but also the relay gold at the 1997 Athens World Championships.

The 2000 Olympics still fall under the current eight-year rule and the IAAF will decide after the BALCO trial is over whether to push for a disqualification of the U.S. relay team.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), IAAF and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had pushed for the entire team, including Michael Johnson, to be stripped of the victory, but the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled in 2005 that only Jerome Young should be stripped of the gold medal.

Young did not run the final, but Pettigrew did, which could change the legal ramifications. Pettigrew retired from track in 2002 and is now an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina.

In Athens in 1997, the US team beat Britain in the race for gold. Jamaica took bronze and Poland were fourth. The other countries could move up one place if the US team would be disqualified because of Pettigrew.

Two years later, the United States beat Poland, Jamaica and South Africa with Pettigrew running the second leg. That race too is outside the eight-year limit.

"We have to think about it. If one athlete came and confessed, 'I have a world record dating from 1973 but I have to confess that I was doped,' what to do? We have to look on that," Diack said.

Legal grey area

Changing the bar now, however, could mean entering a legal grey area and lead to numerous challenges before CAS.

During the conference call, Diack also insisted that Justin Gatlin, the defending Olympic 100-metre champion and another former Graham athlete, should not run at the Olympics.

Gatlin, who has served half of a four-year ban for doping, tested positive for excessive testosterone at the Kansas Relays in 2006, his second doping violation. He has maintained he never knowingly took a performance-enhancing drug.

Gatlin has asked the CAS to cut his suspension nearly in half so he can compete at the Beijing Olympics. The ruling is expected June 6.