THE world governing body for athletics admitted yesterday that it is powerless to prevent drugs-tainted coaches from working with leading competitors after it counted Justin Gatlin, the joint world record-holder for the 100 metres, as the ninth athlete to have failed a drugs test, or committed a doping offence, while under the guidance of Trevor Graham, a Carolina-based trainer.

Gatlin, the world and Olympic champion, is facing a life ban after testing positive for testosterone at the Kansas Relays on April 22. He is coached by Graham, whose former athletes include C. J. Hunter, Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones.

Graham responded by blaming an unnamed former employee of the training group he runs for sabotaging Gatlin.

Hunter, a former shot-put world champion, and Montgomery, who was stripped of his 100 metres world record, were banned for doping, although Jones, who married the former and had a child by the latter, is not among the nine and has never been charged with any offence.

Despite his links with yet another doping allegation, Graham is free to continue coaching. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) introduced a rule two years ago, at the height of the Balco doping scandal, by which support personnel, including coaches and doctors, could be punished but there have been concerns that it would not stand the test of legal challenges.

“We have got rules, we have to apply them,” Nick Davies, an IAAF spokesman, said. “That is the next big challenge. We need to tackle that side as well as just the athletes.”

Graham was the whistleblower who started the Balco investigation in 2003, sending a syringe containing THG, a designer steroid, to the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). He said yesterday that he and Gatlin were not challenging the test result but the circumstances that led to it. “The fact is that someone sabotaged my athlete and we know exactly who it is,” Graham said.

“It is an individual that we fired and we went back and hired. He came to the Kansas Relays and was p***ed off with Justin. We have had a private investigator following this person for quite a while and it is now [a question of] when we are going to press charges.”

Investigators, though, have been looking into Graham, too. His role in the Balco affair is being studied after it was reported two weeks ago that Angel Guillermo Heredia, who had worked with Graham, had testified to the grand jury in the Balco case that he had provided drugs at the coach’s direction between 1997 and 2000.

Gatlin is understood to have told the USADA that he will not compete during its investigation. In the meantime, the IAAF has called on national governments to work with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) to ensure that support personnel are punished as well as athletes.

“What power does the IAAF have over a coach, doctor, or masseur?” Davies said. “We need the support of Wada and especially national governments because they are the only ones who have the power to break up doping rings.

“Having a rule is one thing but how do you break up doping rings if all the power we have is to stop them being accredited [for events] and we do not have the power to stop them going to the track and training people?”

If Gatlin fails to convince the authorities of his innocence, he will be banned for life for a second offence. He was suspended at the age of 19 after a positive test for amphetamines in 2001, but reinstated by the IAAF in 2002 because he was on medication for Attention Deficit Disorder. The IAAF has confirmed that this was still regarded as a first offence.

Although Gatlin would lose his share of the world record, which he holds at 9.77sec with Asafa Powell, from Jamaica, he would keep his Olympic 100 metres and world 100 and 200 metres gold medals.

Wheareas his world record came in Doha, Qatar, on May 12, after the positive test on both A and B samples, his other achievements were accomplished beforehand.

“Gatlin has agreed to attend a hearing before the USADA review board, which is expected to take place shortly,” the IAAF said in a statement. The news of the test was released by the athlete himself, who said, also in a statement: “I cannot account for these results because I have never knowingly used any banned substance or authorised anyone else to adminster such a substance. “In the course of my professional career I have been tested more than 100 times. All the tests this season, including the out-of-competition tests and the in-competition tests conducted just before and after the race in Kansas, were negative.

“It is simply not consistent with my God-given athletic ability to cheat.”