US Track boss seeks removal of tainted 4x400 world mark

A doping-tainted world record in the 4x400-meter relay would be removed as the American record in the event if new USA Track and Field chief executive officer Doug Logan has his way.

Logan said Thursday that he has asked for the body's men's committee to consider decertifying the mark at USA Track and Field's annual meeting at Reno, Nevada, in December. That is the annual time when US marks can be reconsidered.

"Removing this record is the right thing to do, pure and simple," Logan said. "We have no interest in a record that the facts, not rumors, have exposed as being achieved by fraudulent means by at least one athlete on the team."

Americans Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Tyree Washington and Michael Johnson ran the 4x400 world record of 2mins 54.20secs to win at the now-defunct Goodwill Games in Uniondale, New York on July 22, 1998.

But last May, Pettigrew admitted to doping as far back as 1997. When the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) imposed punishment on June 3, it invalidated Pettigrew's results starting in 1997.

That would open the door to revoking the US record, which could prompt the IAAF, the global governing body for athletics, to consider striking the run as a world record. USATF only has jurisdiction over dumping the run as a US mark.

Young was banned for life in 2004 after a second doping violation and on June 17 admitted to even greater doping disgraces, prompting USADA to invalidate Young's results starting from January 1, 1999.

While Young's results from 1998 were not impacted, the tainting of the mark is too near for Logan's liking, even if it means wiping Johnson and Washington from the record book as well.

"Tyree Washington and Michael Johnson played no part in the doping activities of others and it is a shame that they may suffer as a result," Logan said.

"But our message is clear - compete clean, win clean and break records clean or get out of our sport and out of our record books."

Should the 1998 run be stricken from the books, the US 4x400 relay record would return to the foursome of Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds and Johnson, who ran 2:54.29 to win the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.