Veronica Campbell-Brown latest track star facing drug ban

She is a seven-time Olympic medalist, who won back-to-back 200m titles at the Athens and Beijing Olympics, and is one of only eight track athletes to have won world championships at the youth, junior and senior levels of competition.

She grew up in Trelawny, a parish in Jamaica that has produced other speed greats such as Usain Bolt, Merlene Ottey, Sanya Richards-Ross and even disgraced track star Ben Johnson, among others.
Now Veronica Campbell-Brown, one of the most accomplished female track & field athletes is the latest athlete to test positive for a banned substance.

VCB, as she's known in track circles, tested positive for a banned diuretic at a meet in May and has been suspended pending an investigation. Her "B" sample also tested positive for the diuretic, which has not been identified by the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission, though reports are that it is not considered a major infraction. Whatever suspension she eventually gets notwithstanding, VCB will not be able to defend her 200m title at this year's world championship or attempt to better her second-place finish in the 100m.

Diuretics are not classified as a steroid or performance enhancing drug, but work more as a masking agent by diluting the potency of urine samples, which could alter or conceal results of performance enhancing drugs by excreting lower levels of the drug.

Does this mean that one of the most successful women in the sport is a cheat? Who knows.

VCB supporters like fellow track stars Tyson Gay and Justin Gatlin point out that she has consistently won at the highest level from youth to adult competition. But you know who else fits this bill? Marion Jones. Her success as a two-sport athlete who qualified as an alternate for the 1992 Olympics at just 16 and won an NCAA basketball championship as a freshman at the University of North Carolina, was a big reason she was able to weather the scrutiny of being a drug cheat for so long. She was too good to have needed doping assistance, but ultimately admitted to buckling under the pressure to win gold in five events at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

But there are also questionable cases like 400m Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt, who embarrassingly tested positive for banned substances found in the male enhancement product ExtenZe. Though he had used the product during the out-of-competition period, Merritt served a 21-month ban. The IAAF determined he didn't use it to gain an advantage, but a positive test can only mean one thing: suspension. There's also Gatlin, who like Jones I defiantly defended because the two were just too talented to warrant steroid use. After a first ban in 2001 for amphetamines, which he successfully explained was contained in medication he had been taking since childhood for attention deficit disorder, he tested positive again in 2006 for elevated levels of testosterone. Despite claiming his innocence to this day, he was handed a four-year ban and stripped of his 100m world record set at 9.77s. Yet, like Merritt, he is back at the top of the sport, winning bronze in the 100m at 2012 London Olympics and recently beating Usain Bolt at the Golden Gala meet in Rome earlier this month.

Merritt and Gatlin are the examples VCB needs to identify with to prove this was an inadvertent case of doping. It may not drive away doubters, as Gatlin knows all too well (He wasn't allowed to compete at several European meets when he first returned from suspension and was sometimes booed by crowds, including before last year's Olympic 100m final and during his medal presentation.) But doing what she does best, which is consistently winning, can slowly eat away at the doubts. At 31, her career may be on the decline as she has been a top contender since she was 18, but finishing in the top 3 regularly can help restore any damaged reputation she may suffer from this suspension. Just look at Gatlin, he gets more cheers than jeers when he is announced at meets.