Panel Sends Edwards’ Drug Case to the IAAF

Saying the matter presented exceptional circumstances, an arbitration panel on Thursday referred U.S. sprinter Torri Edwards’ case involving the use of a stimulant to track and field’s worldwide governing body.

After a hearing this week, the panel referred the issues to the International Assn. of Athletics Federations, which will have to decide whether Edwards will remain eligible for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, which begin Aug. 13. The time frame for IAAF consideration was not immediately clear.

The 27-year-old Edwards, a graduate of Pomona High and USC who trains with the Southern California-based HSI track club, finished second in the 100-meter dash and third in the 200 meters at the recently concluded U.S. Olympic trials in Sacramento.

Agent and attorney Emanuel Hudson, who heads HSI along with Coach John Smith, hailed Thursday’s ruling as one in Edwards’ favor. He said in a telephone interview, “I don’t believe this court of arbitration believed or felt Torri was a drug cheat or a dishonest person. I would assume that they would not have moved this case forward to the IAAF had they felt that she was a drug cheat.”

Edwards says that she took glucose pills laced with the banned stimulant nikethamide while at a meet in April in the French Caribbean outpost of Martinique. She says her use of nikethamide was inadvertent; the pills were purchased on the island.

Nikethamide is a stimulant used in the 1950s to treat sleeping-pill overdoses that itself can be so toxic it is rarely seen anymore in the United States. In a statement released on Edwards’ behalf last week during the trials, when her positive test results were disclosed, HSI said that the product -- called “Coramine Glucose” -- is sold only in France, Vietnam and certain French outposts.