Athletics: Walker panel named

ATHLETICS

UK ATHLETICS has named the three drugs advisory committee members who will join Michael Beloff QC to decide whether Doug Walker has committed a doping offence. A date for the meeting has yet to be set.

Beloff, who was appointed chairman on 4 February, will sit with Joan Allison. Joining the former British team manager are Professors Vivian James and Hugh Makin from the University of London, both of whom are acknowledged experts on anabolic steroids and steroid hormones.

After they have convened they will present their recommendations as soon as possible to the sports governing body.

"Preparatory work is still being done to ensure the documentation is correct," a UK Athletics spokeswoman, Jayne Pearce, said. "A free date in the diaries of those concerned has also to be found."

It was announced on 26 January that metabolites of the banned steroid, nandrolone, had been found in two urine samples given by Walker following an out-of-competition test last December.

The Scot who captured the European 200 metres gold medal last summer made a public admission he was the mystery athlete involved after the offence was leaked to a Sunday newspaper. But he has always insisted his innocence.

Since the revelation, UK Athletics has confirmed that a private test undertaken by Walker showed no evidence of the banned substance. However, it is the original testing procedures which will be considered by the panel.

If found guilty, Walker faces a two-year suspension under International Amateur Athletic Federation rules. That would rule him out of both this year's World Championships in Seville and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

Indeed, the punishment awarded by the British Olympic Association would be even more severe. It is the body's policy that anyone found guilty of a drug offence should be given a life suspension from competing in the Olympic Games.