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But making the Olympic team is not her only goal. A positive drug test weeks before the 2008 Beijing Games cost her the experience of competing there. After serving a yearlong doping suspension, she is looking to clear her name.
A binding sports arbitration panel reduced the standard two-year doping suspension in Hardy’s case after she argued that she had ingested the banned weight-loss and muscle-building drug clenbuterol by accident. It was discovered in an over-the-counter nutritional supplement she was taking.
But Hardy’s road to the London Games remains a treacherous path of red tape and unknowns because of a relatively new and confusing International Olympic Committee rule.
The rule, instituted just before the 2008 Games, bars from the next Olympics any athlete who has served a doping suspension of six months or longer. While Olympic officials say that eligibility restriction is necessary to rid the Games of athletes who dope, critics say it constitutes a second punishment for those who have served suspensions. No database of athletes barred for doping exists, so it is unclear how many London hopefuls may be affected.
The bigger problem for Hardy and other Americans facing the ban is that the I.O.C. will not hear their appeals unless they have made the United States Olympic team.
Conflicting rules by individual sports federations, the United States Olympic Committee and the I.O.C. create a vicious circle. In many sports that select teams through trials, like swimming and track, athletes deemed ineligible for the Olympics may not be allowed to vie for a spot at the trials in the first place.
“It’s just a bunch of dead ends that’s turned into a disaster,” the 23-year-old Hardy said. “For the sake of myself and for my U.S.A. teammates, I’m hoping that they’ll make a ruling before 2012. If not, I will not let it go because it’s not fair. I will not go down without a fight. It will be a huge distraction, but it’s not my fault.”
The I.O.C. adopted the rule to save the Olympic community the public-relations nightmare of having known cheaters in competition, said Arne Ljungqvist, the chairman of the I.O.C.’s medical commission. Some national federations were shortening athletes’ suspensions so they could compete in the Olympics, he said, which the I.O.C. considered wrong.
The rule serves as an additional deterrent to doping, Ljungqvist said, because drug testing alone has often not been enough to catch those who cheat.
Antidoping officials said that no athletes bound for the 2010 Vancouver Games contested the rule, which was instituted three days before Hardy’s failed drug test in July 2008. So the lead-up to the London Games is the first time athletes are expected to challenge or appeal it. A wave of appeals — particularly by Americans — will most likely be heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport before the Olympics. That court’s ruling would be final.
Ljungqvist said the United States is one of the few countries that select their Olympic team through trials, which often occur close to the deadline for submitting a final roster of athletes to the I.O.C.
“There is an appeal process in place, and any athlete has the right to go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport or do whatever once they are named to their Olympic team,” he said. “The timing problem is a very U.S.-specific case, and international sports rules are not at all adjusted to what may be the selection of teams in various countries.”
Hardy and at least one other American, the runner LaShawn Merritt, have asked the I.O.C. to rule on their eligibility for the Olympics, but the I.O.C. has declined to do so. Merritt, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist in the 400 meters, tested positive in 2009 for a prohibited substance found in the male-enhancement product ExtenZe — which, according to its label, contained DHEA, a banned steroid. He received a 21-month suspension that will end next July.
An American arbitration panel that decided Merritt’s case found that the I.O.C. rule violated the World Anti-Doping Code, to which the I.O.C. adheres. It said a fair and just system would allow athletes to appeal the rule immediately and warned that the uncertainty of the rule could cause the U.S.O.C. “to face unnecessary and excessive litigation, with its resulting costs.”
David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said last month that the Olympic ban was an eligibility issue, not a doping sanction — a position the Merritt panel called skullduggery. Athletes and the I.O.C. would be responsible for resolving any conflicts, he said.
Howard Jacobs, the lawyer for Merritt and Hardy, said the timing of those resolutions could pose a headache for both sides.
