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Montgomery's lawyers demanding arbitration
World 100 metres record holder Tim Montgomery's lawyers said on Monday they would press for arbitration abroad over doping charges against the sprinter by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). "We are contesting the charges and will demand arbitration," said Don Goldberg, a spokesman for Montgomery's lawyer, Cristina Arguedas. A letter would be sent to USADA later on Monday, he said. "Tim Montgomery has done nothing wrong, and we believe that any fair reading of the evidence in fact supports his innocence," Arguedas said in a statement on June 18. His lawyers later told the San Jose Mercury-News that Montgomery would go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which is based in Lausanne, Switzerland for a ruling. "We are taking this step because we believe that USADA's conduct...has been so egregious as to remove any confidence that Tim could be fairly treated in this process," lawyer Howard Jacobs told the paper. A decision by CAS would be final but it may well not be able to reach it by the start of the US Olympic trials in Sacramento on July 9. Doping allegations Montgomery could thus qualify for August's Athens Games with the spectre of doping allegations still hanging over him, though it is by no means a given that he would make the team, given his poor form this year. Montgomery and former world indoor 200 metres champion Michelle Collins were among four US sprinters charged by USADA with doping violations that could bring lifetime bans from the sport. USADA is not a government agency. Goldberg declined to comment on Monday on a report that Montgomery told a federal grand jury in San Francisco that some elite runners were made sick by a drug - code-named "clear" - from BALCO, the San Francisco-area laboratory at the heart of the steroid scandal. The San Francisco Chronicle said Montgomery had told the grand jury investigating BALCO that he suffered negative side effects and got no benefit from the drug during an eight-month period in 2000-2001. Montgomery said the drug was a steroid that "was made for bodybuilders, not for sprinters" and did not improve his performance, the paper said, adding that it would not be detected in doping tests. The paper did not say where it got the information. On Friday, a US judge ordered federal prosecutors to investigate the source of leaked grand jury testimony in the doping case and asked defendants and their lawyers to sign affidavits to not release transcripts. Conte and three other men were indicted in February for operating a drug ring to illegally distribute growth hormone and steroids to athletes. They have pleaded innocent. |
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