Why Is Gatlin's Doping Should Be Banned

Due to this being Gatlin’s second offense violation doping regulations, he had initially faced a lifetime ban. In order to avoid this, Gatlin had cooperated with authorities in order to find out what he had done wrong and in order to attempt to show that he had not been doping. Because of the cooperation and assistance from Gatlin he had only received an eight year ban for this offense. Not only was he banned, but his recently shared co-world record of 9.77 seconds in the 100-meter sprint had also been annulled. Shortly after this incident, in December of 2007, Gatlin had finished his appeals process from the 2006 doping case, shortening his eight year ban to only four. This was seen as incredibly controversial, as many had seen Gatlin as a …show more content…
Gatlin’s first doping case for amphetamines had been accidental, even being recognized as so by USADA. They had released a statement saying, “Mr. Gatlin neither cheated nor intended to cheat. He did not intend to enhance his performance nor, given his medical condition, did his medication in fact enhance his performance” (Johnson). Coming from the very organization that had given Gatlin his sentence, this is powerful in regards to suggesting that Gatlin, at the time of his amphetamine violation, was more innocent than many believe. This innocence did not resonate from Gatlin during his 2006 doping violation. Although Gatlin had denied knowingly using testosterone, this substance is incredibly hard to have in your body without knowing that it had been put there. Nonetheless, Gatlin had gone to trial for the incident and was willing to accept the punishment that USADA found fit. The initial ban that had been proposed was a lifetime ban, which at the time was the norm for a secondary violation of USADA’s doping policies. Gatlin, because of the circumstances of his initial violation however, was and should have been given an exception on the idea of a lifetime ban. The outcome of Justin Gatlin’s second doping violation had ended up being very similar to that of someone who had been caught using testosterone and similar performance enhancing drugs, being anywhere from 2-4 years. Gatlin had been treated fairly in his violation proceedings, and should not be seen as a cheat to the sport because he had been caught doping twice, but rather only because he was caught for using