Running News Daily

American sprinter and long jumper, Jarrion Lawson cleared his name

Lawson, the only man besides Jesse Owens to win the 100 meters, 200 meters, and long jump at the same NCAA championships and the long jump silver medalist at the 2017 World Championships, took a drug test in June 2018 that revealed an Adverse Analytical Finding. That mere fact was essentially a death sentence. The test had been ordered by the Athletics Integrity Unit, World Athletics’ anti-doping arm. Since the AIU’s establishment in April 2017, it had prosecuted over 100 cases of Adverse Analytical Findings. Every single one of them resulted in a sanction.

So it came as no surprise when Lawson’s appeal of the resulting four-year suspension was rejected by an AIU Disciplinary Tribunal in May 2019.

Lawson told the AIU he had ingested the prohibited substance — epitrenbolone, a metabolite of the banned anabolic steroid trenbolone — unknowingly, the result of consuming contaminated beef. Yet that explanation was not enough; for the AIU to overturn the decision, Lawson had to prove “with actual evidence” the “specific source of the allegedly contaminated meat and demonstrate the likelihood that said meat was contaminated.” Despite his best efforts, Lawson could not do that.

Undeterred, Lawson, 25, appealed the AIU’s decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which heard his case in New York on November 21. The CAS appeal was a Hail Mary; the CAS panel that heard Lawson’s case admitted when it reached its decision in March.

“In ‘extremely rare’ cases, an athlete might be able to demonstrate a lack of intent even where he/she cannot establish the origin of the prohibited substance,” the CAS decision read, later noting an athlete such as Lawson would have to pass through the “narrowest of corridors” to prove his innocence without establishing the specific source of the prohibited substance.

“Common sense must count strongly,” the CAS decision read, “against it being a mere coincidence that he tested positive, for such a tiny amount of a dangerous and illegal prohibited substance as to be undetectable in his hair, and for no rational benefit, so soon after having eaten beef from hormone-treated cattle.”

Lawson was relieved to have the case settled in his favor. He doesn’t blame the restaurant for the contaminated beef — “we don’t know what’s going on in the meat industry” — and isn’t dwelling on missed earnings or competition opportunities.

“Anything that I may have missed out on, I think I will get everything that’s supposed to come my way,” Lawson says.

But Lawson isn’t completely ready to move on. The costs he was forced to pay — tens of thousands in legal fees, a hit to his reputation, and a year and a half of his prime — were severe; the next athlete in his situation might not be willing (or able) to pay them. He believes there are major flaws in the doping control process that need to be remedied