Athletics: Janine's father out for justice

Tony Whitlock, the father of British pole-vault record- holder Janine Whitlock, is offering a four-figure reward for information that leads to an explanation as to why his daughter tested positive for the anabolic steroid methandienone. Mr Whitlock, who guided his daughter to international level as her first coach, said: "I want to offer a reward. I don't yet know how much, because I'm fairly poor, but we're talking at least £1,000 for information leading to unearthing who did this."

Mr Whitlock is convinced his 28-year-old daughter is innocent of having knowingly ingested the banned substance that was detected in a urine sample she gave after improving her British record to 4.41m at the English Commonwealth Games team trials in Manchester six weeks ago. He believes she was either a victim of sabotage or of having taken a legal supplement that was contaminated.

He has been more than interested to learn that the German Sports University in Cologne has discovered that a sports supplement being sold to athletes in Britain actually contains high levels of methandienone – a development reported to Michelle Verroken, the UK Sport direc-tor of anti-doping and ethics.

"Janine has various supplements and vitamins which she takes and they're all away being tested at the moment," Mr Whitlock said. "We're not sure if this product is one of them." Janine has been suspended by UK Athletics pending a disciplinary hearing. She faces a two-year ban, but her father insisted: "She has got to be the most obviously innocent athlete in the history of people testing positive."