Justin Gatlin will face a 8-year ban from track and field instead of a lifetime ban. This announcement was made yesterday, August 23rd. According to this article from ESPN.com, the recent test was Gatlin’s second positive drug test– so he would be qualified to receive the lifetime ban from track. But the first positive test, according to Gatlin, was due to medication that he was taking for attention deficit disorder when he was at the University of Tennessee. Gatlin is also cooperating with USADA and other doping authorities with this investigation. But it just as well be a lifetime ban– eight years will make Gatlin in his 30s, and you don’t see many sprinters still competively run at that age. You see a few throwers out there still competing at that age — but rarely any runners.
For any organization, it is important to make sure that you issue a statement in a crisis situation, and that is what USATF has done. USATF issued a statement on their web site regarding the Gatlin case by CEO Craig Masback. There is one thing that I am puzzled about– and that is, why isn’t there a statement about Marion Jones? Sure, Gatlin was being marketed as being a “clean” athlete and the “future of track and field”– and there have been statements released about him– but there is nothing mentioning Marion Jones or her recent positive test of EPO. Jones was being marketed as having this great “comeback”– and she is a very high profile athlete, and there is no statement from USATF on her situation? The only statements that have been printed in the press have come from Jones’s attoney and her coach Steve Riddick, but not USATF.
In terms of public relations strategies, it is very important to be consistent and transparent with your actions. Otherwise people may suspect that there is something that the organization is not telling its publics. We will have to see what happens in the next couple of weeks– track seems to be filled with a lot of drama now.
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