Kingston – Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell, two of the four fastest men in history, sent shock waves through the blue riband 100m on Sunday when they admitted they had failed drug tests.
Gay, the 30-year-old American who was world champion in 2007 and the fastest man in the world this year, tested positive for a banned substance and immediately withdrew from next month’s world championships in Moscow.
Jamaican sprint star Powell, a former 100m world record holder, confirmed he had tested positive for a banned stimulant at his country’s national trials for Moscow.
Jamaican Olympic relay silver medallist Sherone Simpson said on Sunday that she had tested positive for a stimulant – at the national championships last month.
Only Olympic champion and world record holder Usain Bolt (9.58seconds) has gone faster than Gay, whose best of 9.69sec he shares with Yohan Blake of Jamaica. Powell is the fourth-fastest man of all time with 9.72sec.
Gay was informed by the US Anti-Doping Agency on Friday of his failed test and on Sunday the USA Track and Field said he had pulled out of the world championships.
A tearful Gay said he had tested positive for a substance he could not identify and was pulling out of next month’s world championships.
Gay told two reporters in a phone conference call that he had been notified by the US Anti-Doping Agency that his A sample from an out-of-competition test on May 16 had returned a positive.
“I don’t have a sabotage story. I don’t have lies… I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down,” Gay, 30.
He had not at any time knowingly taken a performance-enhancing drug, the sprinter added. “I made a mistake. I am pulling out of Monaco (Diamond League meeting on Friday) and the world championships.”
Gay, the world 100m and 200m champion in 2007, said he could not divulge the substance or how the positive occurred.
“I am not allowed to talk about those things right now.
“I know exactly what went on, but I can’t discuss it right now. I hope I am able to run again. But I will take whatever punishment I get like a man.”
The US Anti-Doping Agency said Gay’s B sample had yet to be tested so it would not confirm or deny the failed test.
Gay had run the fastest time in the world this year at last month’s US trials for the world championships in Iowa. His 9.75sec was the 10th-fastest 100m yet.
World record holder Bolt’s best time over 100m this season has been 9.94sec, clocked in Kingston last month.
Gay won the 100m, the 200m and the 4x100m relay in Osaka at the 2007 world championships and collected a 4x100m silver medal at the London Olympics last year.
Powell, 30, took to Twitter to confirm his dope test failure.
“I will confirm that a sample I gave at the National Trials in June has returned ‘adverse findings’,” he said.
“The substance oxilofrine was found, which is considered by the authorities to be a banned stimulant.
“I want to be clear that I have never knowingly or wilfully taken any supplements or substances that break any rules. I am not now nor have I ever been a cheat.”
Powell held the 100m world record between June 2005 and May 2008.
He won two bronze medals in the 100m at the 2007 and 2009 world championships.
He won gold in the 4x100m relay in 2009.
But he has not managed an individual sprint medal at the Olympics, finishing fifth in the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Olympic 100m finals and limping home in eighth place in the final in London last year.
Simpson, 28, was a member of the Jamaican team who finished second in the 4x100m relay at the Olympics.
She tied for second place in the 100m at the 2008 Beijing Games and won a gold medal in the 4x100m relay four years earlier in Athens.
“This is a difficult time for me,” she said. “I was notified on July 14 that my urine sample taken at the National Senior Championship, June 21, 2013 after the 100m finals returned a positive analytical finding for a stimulant, oxilofrine (methylsynephrine).”
Reuters and Sapa-AFP