The Electronic Telegraph Thursday 23 October 2003 Tom Knight
Regina Jacobs, the American middle-distance runner, was yesterday named as the latest athlete to test positive for the new designer steroid, tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG. Jacobs is the third of five athletes who are known to have tested positive for the drug that was previously thought to be undetectable. Kevin Toth, the American shot putter, was the first to be identified while it emerged earlier this week that Britain's Dwain Chambers tested positive for THG when the International Association of Athletics Federations caught up with him at his pre-World Championships training camp in Germany. Jacobs and Toth are among the four American athletes whose urine samples from the national championships in June were re-tested in August by the US Anti-Doping Agency. The three athletes identified are all clients of the San Francisco-based Bay Area Laboratories Co-Operative (BALCO), which has been cited by the USADA as the source of the new steroid. Victor Conte, the former musician who founded BALCO 20 years ago, has denied his company is the source and that THG is a steroid. He is, however, the subject of a federal grand jury investigation into his financial affairs. Jacobs' name is bound to cause embarrassment to the IAAF, who only recently ratified the world record she set in Boston in February, when, at 39, she clocked 3min 59.98sec to become the first woman to run inside four minutes for the 1500 metres indoors. The Californian's performances in recent years have raised more than a few eyebrows since she seemed to get better as she got older. Her biography in the USA Track and Field handbook produced for this summer's World Championships described how Jacobs' career was "rejuvenated" in 1993. She discovered that she was suffering from low levels of iron in her body and that changes in her diet and running form were, in part, responsible for her improvement. The winner of 25 national titles in a top-class career stretching back to the late Eighties, Jacobs twice won the 1500m silver medal at the World Championships. In March, she came to Birmingham and beat Britain's Kelly Holmes to take the world indoor crown. Holmes refused to comment on Jacobs' plight yesterday. But, speaking at the National Indoor Arena after her victory, Jacobs said she was happy for people to talk about her age. "I hope I'm a role model for other women. I have a cousin who's a masters runner. She is 60-plus and she's still running well. I want to be like her. After the Athens Olympics, I'll retire from this level of racing but I hope to still compete at masters level." Like all those athletes who have tested positive, Jacobs' guilt will not be established until after her second, or B, sample has been analysed. The result of that analysis, which is expected within a fortnight, will determine if she makes it to Athens. The IAAF once feared that the discovery of THG would lead to an epidemic of drug-test positives but they now believe that after revisiting urine samples collected at the Paris World Championships, the final number will be fewer than a dozen. Eamonn Condon [EMAIL PROTECTED]
