LONDON (AFP) — Five-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson is to return the 4x400m relay gold he won at the Sydney Games in 2000 in the wake of former team-mate Antonio Pettigrew's admission he had been taking drugs.
Pettigrew's doping admission came in the perjury trial of athletics coach Trevor Graham, who oversaw disgraced sprint trio Justin Gatlin, Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery.
The confession also followed drugs bans of four and two years respectively for Alvin and Calvin Harrison as well as a failed drugs test for Jerome Young, who were all also members of the victorious US team in Sydney.
Johnson, an outspoken critic of doping in athletics, announced on Tuesday that he will voluntarily return his gold to the International Olympic Committee.
"I know that the medal was not fairly won and that it is dirty," Johnson told the Daily Telegraph newspaper here.
"I will be returning it because I don't want it. I feel cheated and betrayed," said Johnson, who holds nine world World Championship golds and also the world records for the 200m and 400m.
"The news that Antonio was expected to testify to having taken performance-enhancing drugs shocked me like no other drug-related story.
"Having received news over the past few years of many other athletes having cheated, I had reached a point of no longer being shocked. But this one was different, he was someone I considered a friend.
"As for that gold medal I won with Antonio, Alvin and Calvin, who have all admitted to or have tested positive for drugs since 2000 when we won the medal, I'm sure that there will be calls for us to give it back.
"I know that the medal was not fairly won and so I have moved it from the location where I have always kept my medals because it doesn't belong there, and it doesn't belong to me."
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