Court rules for US swimmer Hardy, rejecting WADA bid to extend ban; Olympic status undecided

Court rules for Jessica Hardy, rejects WADA appeal

Jessica Hardy was expecting an important call, so she had the coach hold her cell phone alongside the pool while she went through her normal morning workout at USC.

Then came a ruling she’s been hoping for ever since a positive drug test barred her from swimming at the Beijing Olympics.

The top court in sports ruled in Hardy’s favor Friday, siding with her claim that a contaminated supplement was to blame and rejecting an appeal by the World Anti-Doping Agency to extend her suspension for another year.

“I got back in the water almost immediately,” Hardy told The Associated Press, “but I took like 30 seconds to cry, I mean cry really hard. It’s an emotional relief. I’m just so happy. I had to take a little break before I continued my set.”

The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, dismissed WADA’s appeal to lengthen the ban from one to two years, though it did leave one issue unresolved: whether Hardy may compete at the 2012 London Olympics.

The swimmer already has been in contact with the International Olympic Committee. She hopes that her absence from the 2008 Games will be seen as an appropriately harsh penalty for an unintentional doping violation.

“I’m very, very confident that I’ll be in London,” Hardy said. “I already missed an Olympic spot that I was on for sure. Now there’s a factual ruling that my positive test didn’t come from something I had intentionally done. To be able to have that factual evidence is something that makes me a lot more confident that I can start looking forward to London.”

Hardy tested positive for clenbuterol at the U.S. Olympic trials in July 2008, costing her the spot she had won on the American team for Beijing.

The CAS panel of three lawyers accepted she was not to blame for the failed test, and had unknowingly taken the banned anabolic agent in a contaminated food supplement.

She served a one-year ban and set several breaststroke world records after returning to swimming last year.

“WADA is satisfied that CAS fully scrutinized this case and abides by the CAS ruling,” WADA director general David Howman said in a statement.

The IOC must now decide whether to apply a rule that bars athletes from the next Olympics if they serve a doping ban of at least six months. The organization said Friday the rule took effect on July 1, 2008 — three days before Hardy provided the sample that led to the failed test.

Hardy’s legal team had asked CAS to rule on her Olympic status at a hearing held in New York in March. The court declined to get involved in that issue.

Still, the 23-year-old swimmer is thrilled she’ll be able to keep swimming as she heads into an important summer of meets. The national championships in July will determine the U.S. team for both this year’s Pan Pacific Championships and next year’s world championships in Shanghai.

Friday’s ruling allows Hardy to keep the world records in the 50- and 100-meter breaststroke, and the 50-meter short-course breaststroke. She also retains the $100,000 first prize she earned as the top female swimmer on the five-meet World Cup circuit — money that she needed after depleting her savings to pay her legal bills.

“This all means so much more to me,” Hardy said. “I’ve broken world records before. I’ve won medals before. But now that I’ve had everything taken away, I know it’s so much more difficult to achieve all that than I did before. It feels so amazing. I can’t even put into words what it means to me to swim that well. I really appreciate it every day.”

The CAS panel agreed with the American Arbitration Association’s decision in May 2009 that Hardy should be spared a longer ban because she was not at fault for the positive test. WADA challenged the American tribunal’s ruling, asking that she be required to serve the usual two-year suspension as a first-time doping offender.

Hardy “had shown good faith efforts before ingesting the food supplements at stake,” CAS said.

“She had made the research and investigation which could reasonably be expected from an informed athlete wishing to avoid risks connected to the use of food supplements. The supplements she took were not labeled in a manner which might have raised suspicions.”

Hardy used a powdered supplement called Arginine Extreme made by one of her sponsors, Advocare International of Carrollton, Texas.

These days, she is much more cautious about what she puts in her body.

“I absolutely do not take any kind of supplements,” Hardy said. “I barely take any kind of medications anymore. I’m very, very cautious about where I get my food and drinks. I’m always watching my water bottle. I never leave it unattended. I’m doing absolutely the best I can, but it’s a risk that every professional athlete faces.”

It still hurts to have missed out on her first Olympics for something she didn’t intentionally do.

“In a metaphorical sense, it’s like a scar. It’s not an open wound anymore,” Hardy said. “I’ve definitely moved on and I can look forward and be happy with my career. But I’m definitely very sad and very hurt about (the 2008 Olympics), and I forever will be.”

AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Lausanne, Switzerland, contributed to this report.