Greetings, all: I've submitted the following article to National Masters News. I welcome your comments. Ken Stone http://www.masterstrack.com Kathy Jager's bumpy road to early reinstatement from her two-year IAAF drug ban took a wrenching turn in late July. And if she wasn't bruised enough before, she is now. First USATF informed the Arizona sprinter, 56, that her doctor-prescribed menopause treatment yielded a "drug positive" at the 1999 Gateshead world veterans meet, where she won six medals, including two sprint golds. Then she was told she could compete again soon if she passed a series of drug tests and received a medical exemption from the IAAF, allowing her to resume taking her daily dose of Estratest HS, which contains a minute amount of methyltestosterone, a banned steroid. Now Jager has learned that the IAAF has rejected her request for a medical waiver. "After a period of constant e-mail contact with the Monaco and Swedish offices of the IAAF Anti-Doping Commission," she and her husband, Carl, wrote in late July, "we finally wrung an answer out of them on Kathy's exemption request. "The answer was: No exemption will be allowed. No specific reasoning was advanced -- just that the IAAF `cannot allow any athlete to use testosterone.' " The Jagers said the fact that Estratest was a required medication -- with no proven link to improved athletic performance -- "was obviously not an effective argument." But what came next was equally mystifying. "The IAAF has also informed us that it is turning over the whole matter to WAVA for their `medical exemption' consideration." Until now, the World Association of Veteran Athletes has assumed a studiously silent stance in the case, giving no hint of its potentially decisive role. USATF, meanwhile, informed Jager that it had yanked its recommendation for early reinstatement, based on the IAAF's refusal to grant her a waiver. Jager -- the first masters athlete in history to be banned for drugs -- now has to begin a fight on a new front. "We're turning our attention to WAVA," the Jagers said. "In spite of these rather stark turnarounds in support, we're confident that it will eventually become apparent that positive, enlightened actions and changes in policy are required." USATF chief Craig Masback and WAVA President Torsten Carlius of Sweden failed to respond to e-mail requests for comment. Bridget Cushen of Britain, chairwoman of WAVA's Women's Committee, would only say: "Yes, members of the Women's Committee were informed sometime ago of a positive drug case involving a W55 competitor. I am unable to make any further comments at this stage." But David Pain of San Diego -- who launched masters track in the United States in the late 1960s and who helped create WAVA -- wasn't coy in his reaction. "To apply current IAAF rules to that problem was totally out of line," Pain said of Jager's plight. Pain said he left active involvement in WAVA after 1991 partly as a protest against WAVA's move toward affiliating with the IAAF, with its Draconian drug policies. At the General Assembly that July in Turku, Finland, Pain lost a race for WAVA secretary to Carlius. Pain campaigned against drug-testing in WAVA, first because it was "prohibitively expensive" and also because it was "a non-issue." The IAAF, meanwhile, has moved on to other drug cases. In early July, a three-member IAAF arbitration panel that included WAVA General Secretary Monty Hacker of South Africa ordered Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey, 40, reinstated from her drug ban. And in early August, the IAAF cut short the drug ban of Cuban high jumper Javier Sotomayor, allowing him to compete in the Sydney Games. Among the reasons for letting Sotomayor compete despite testing positive for cocaine, the IAAF cited "exceptional circumstances" and the jumper's "humanitarian work."
