Kamy Keshmiri, winner of the discus at the U.S. Olympic trials and the collegiate record-holder, said Friday he has been notified by The Athletics Congress that he tested positive for drugs at a random, out-of-competition test.
TAC, the national governing body for track and field, said it would not have any comment on the matter. It is customary for TAC not to announce positive drug tests until an athlete has exhausted his appeals process.Keshmiri, in a telephone conversation from his Reno, Nev., home, said he was notified of the test results two days after winning the discus at the trials in New Orleans last month. The test, he said, was administered about mid-May. He did not identify the drug for which he allegedly tested positive.
"I'm innocent," said the 23-year-old Keshmiri, a three-time national champion and three-time NCAA champion while at Nevada. "There was nothing in there. They know it.
"The tests were inconclusive. There was nothing in my urine. They're so wrong."
If Keshmiri is guilty, he would face a four-year ban, automatically knocking him out of this month's Barcelona Olympics.
In testing, two samples are looked at - an A sample and a B sample.
"There was something in the A they were not sure of," Keshmiri said. "To open the B sample, you have to have a witness. An eminent toxicologist was my witness.
"He said the reading came out . . . absolutely negative.
"If the A is positive, the B has to conclude the positive. The B did not conclude the A . . . by no means. There was nothing there."
Keshmiri said the sample of the test, which was conducted in Reno, was sent to Canada, rather than being read in Indianapolis, where TAC is located.
He also said, "They used six times the amount of urine they should have used. They ran it through until 3 o'clock in the morning. When you have a toxicologist who witnesses it all day and then they run it all through the night . . . what does that tell you?"
In that case, Keshmiri said, "They're out to get me."
That, he said, was because he has been very outspoken against TAC and its policies.
"I know that TAC and the IAAF (International Amateur Athletic Federation, the world governing body for the sport) want me out (of the Olympics)," Keshmiri said. "They don't want me around."
The disagreements between Keshmiri and TAC have been so bitter, Keshmiri said, that last November he wrote a letter to Duffy Mahoney, a TAC official, telling him he was unhappy with the system and might compete for Iran, where his father was born.
"That triggered it," Keshmiri said.
Keshmiri said he has been tested 12 times in the past year and 38 times in the past four years, and never was positive.
If Keshmiri is suspended, he said he probably would not fight it, because there would not be enough time before the Olympics begin on July 25.
"If the IAAF would grant me an independent court in this country and let them decide, I would go for that," he said. "And if they came up with a verdict (against me), I would shut my mouth. But that's not going to happen.
"Look how long Butch Reynolds has been fighting his case, two years."
Reynolds, the 400-meter world record-holder and 1988 Olympic silver medalist, was suspended for two years after allegedly testing positive for steroids in a meet at Monte Carlo in August 1990. After taking his case to the Supreme Court and winning approval, he was finally permitted by the IAAF to compete in the trials.
"There has been a lot of uncertainty for me lately," Keshmiri said, "but one thing I know is that I am a drug-free athlete."