Gatlin

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters)

Justin Gatlin's lawyer said yesterday she did not expect the Olympic champion's arbitration hearing on doping charges to be held this year.

"I don't think so," Cameron Myler told Reuters in a telephone interview from her New York office.

"One of the benefits that we get from the (August) stipulation with USADA (the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency) is more time to collect evidence to support our defences," she added.

"So I think the time frame (for the hearing) will be a little longer than you usually see."

Gatlin, who shares the 100 metres world record with Jamaican Asafa Powell, tested positive for excess levels of the male sex hormone testosterone and its precursors at a Kansas relay meeting in April.

USADA announced last month that the 24-year-old American had accepted the accuracy of the laboratory results from the test and agreed his positive test constituted a doping violation.

JUST OUTCOME

An arbitration hearing will determine what ban, if any, Gatlin faces.

The maximum suspension would be eight years, USADA has agreed.

Gatlin could have faced a lifetime ban under anti-doping rules for second offences.

But USADA said his 2001 positive test for an amphetamine contained in a medication he had been taking for 10 years for Attention Deficit Disorder was a unique case and determined that an eight-year ban would be a just outcome.

Gatlin's lawyers are hoping an arbitration panel will either clear him or provide a much shorter suspension.

He has denied knowingly using any banned substance and predicted in an August statement that he would be cleared and allowed to compete again.

Myler said Gatlin's legal team had yet to file for an arbitration hearing.

"But we definitely will be," she added. "It's just an issue of timing."

Evidence that will assist Gatlin in the hearing is still being gathered, Myler said.

"We are trying to uncover all of the stones and look at all of the possibilities," she said.