RALEIGH, North Carolina: Former elite athletics coach Trevor Graham has been banned for life for violating anti-doping rules, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said on Tuesday.

The former trainer of disgraced sprinters Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin, Graham is banned from coaching or participating in any competition or activity organized by the US Olympic Committee (USOC), USA Track & Field (USATF), the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and other worldwide bodies, USADA said in a statement.

Graham was convicted in US federal court in May of lying to federal agents investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO) doping scandal.

He has yet to be sentenced and has asked the court to acquit him of the conviction on the charge that he lied about his relationship with an admitted steroids dealer.

His lifetime ban began on Tuesday.

"It sends a powerful reminder that coaches and athlete-support personnel are not above the rules," USADA chief executive officer Travis Tygart told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"There's a misconception out there that they are because we don't drug-test them. This shows that we'll use all of our authority in order to do that."

Graham touched off the BALCO scandal when he anonymously sent a syringe containing the previously undetectable steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) to USADA in 2003.

The doping scandal, the biggest in sports history, has affected athletes in athletics, baseball and American football and led to the sentencing of BALCO founder Victor Conte and four others. More than a dozen athletes have been suspended or disciplined.

Former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, baseball's all-time home run leader, also has been indicted in connection with the scandal.

He has been charged with 14 counts of making false declarations to a grand jury and one count of obstruction of justice.

Bonds denied knowingly taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Graham was banned from the use of US Olympic Committee facilities after a number of his athletes were suspended for doping violations. He had been under investigation by USADA prior to his court conviction.

He withdrew his request for an arbitration hearing on USADA charges of violation anti-doping rules after his court conviction, USADA said.

"There's no opportunity to seek reinstatement," Tygart told Reuters. "Any chance that he may have had for that has passed. He's waived that."

Agencies

(China Daily 07/17/2008 page23)