KINGSTON, Jamaica, (Reuters) – Jamaica’s twice Olympic 200 metres champion Veronica Campbell-Brown was suspended by her national federation today following a positive test for a banned diuretic at a meeting last month.
“The Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) can now confirm that a case concerning Mrs Veronica Campbell-Brown is currently ongoing,” the Jamaican governing body said in a statement.
“She has been provisionally suspended from competition awaiting the outcome of a disciplinary panel that will be empanelled to hear this case.”
The JAAA said the Caribbean island’s most successful female athlete had voluntarily withdrawn from competition and accepted the provisional suspension.
Campbell-Brown, 31, who was the first Jamaican athlete, male or female to win a global 100 metres title, tested positive for a diuretic, which can be used to mask the use of performance-enhancing drugs, at the International Invitational World Challenge on May 4.
The JAAA had not previously identified Campbell-Brown but said it would empanel a disciplinary team to carry out a hearing as soon as it received notificiation of the B sample.
Sources close to Jamaican athletics told Reuters yesterday that the banned drug was contained in a cream which Campbell-Brown was using to treat a leg injury and which she had declared on her doping control form.
They said an important factor was whether or not the banned drug appeared on the label of the cream. The World Anti-Doping Agency has a strict liability policy under which athletes are held responsible for any drug found in their body.
The 200 metres world champion and her agent Claude Bryan have yet to comment but on Saturday her high school mentor Neville Myton told Television Jamaica that the sprinter would soon speak about the doping violation.
