KINGSTON, Jamaica (AFP) — Sprinter Julien Dunkley was dropped Tuesday from the list of Jamaican athletes competing at the Beijing Olympics but Jamaican Olympic officials would not confirm he tested positive for doping.
Dunkley's name has been removed from a group of 53 Jamaican athletes that had been posted on the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) website, but JOA head Mike Fennell said "the website has been under modification from day to day."
"You can draw your own conclusions but I am not going to say anything further at this point," Fennell said.
Fennell had earlier said the athlete who tested positive was not considered a "top athlete" and that he would be dropped from the team and his absence "won't affect anybody who is clean".
While the identity of the doping positive athlete remains unconfirmed, Dunkley fits the description. He finished sixth in the 100 metres final at last month's Jamaican Olympic trials, where the positive test was taken.
The athlete tested positive for the banned substance Boldenone, a favorite among body builders.
Dunkley would have been in a position to compete for Jamaica in preliminary rounds of the sprint relays.
Fennell said Jamaican Olympians are "extremely disappointed that one of their colleagues has let them down."
"It is a very sensitive and important issue and we have to be careful with how we treat it," he said.
Jamaica's best medal haul at the Olympics was seven in 2000 at Sydney and experts had predicted Jamaicans could win as many as 11 medals.
There have been several questions in recent months about the super performance of Jamaican athletes.
Adrian Lorde, head of the Caribbean Regional Anti-Doping Organisation, recently lambasted Jamaica for not doing enough doping tests.
Victor Comte, founder of the BALCO laboratory that sparked a designer steroid scandal which rocked athletics, has raised questions about Jamaican athletes and doping.
But for Fennell, the fact that the Jamaican anti-doping measures caught a cheat shows a strong testing programme.
"Everybody is extremely disappointed that one of our athletes have tested positive but I think it is a warning to everybody that we have a very robust testing system in place, which is working," Fennell said.
Jamaican sprint queen Merlene Ottey failed a steroid test in 1999 while training in Europe. She was cleared of wrongdoing, the positive later ruled a laboratory error.
Jamaican athletes Patrick Jarrett and Steve Mullings have failed drug tests in recent years. Jarrett failed a steroids test in 2001 and Mullings tested positive for testosterone in 2004.
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