ATHLETICS/ Latest doping scandal: Michael Johnson may be stripped of the gold medal he won in the 4x400 metres relay at the Sydney Olympics, after the world's top sports court yesterday ruled that his team-mate Jerome Young should not have been allowed to run because he had failed a drugs test.

Young tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone in 1999 and was banned the following year. He was then exonerated by USA Track & Field and allowed to run in Sydney.

But a three-person Court of Arbitration for Sport panel decided Young should have been banned from June 26th, 1999 until June 25th, 2001. "Mr Young should not have been eligible to compete in any competition during that period, including the Olympic Summer Games in Sydney in 2000," the ruling said.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was not officially notified by USATF of Young's positive drugs test until last February, and it referred the matter to the CAS. That was after he admitted he was the athlete concerned following the publication of his name in the Los Angeles Times after his victory in the 400 metres at the world championships in Paris last August.

It also followed a threat from the United States Olympic Committee of withdrawing $3 million in funding from USATF, refusing accreditation to its officials for the Athens Olympics and stripping it of the right to run the sport in America.

"The IAAF is extremely pleased that a case that begun in 1999 can now finally be closed," said Lamine Diack, the IAAF president. "It is important for the IAAF to demonstrate that doping offences, whenever they come to light, will be sanctioned according to our rules."

Diack said the IAAF ruling council could decide at its next meeting, during the Athens Olympics in August, whether to recommend to the IOC that it disqualify the whole team. If it did, Nigeria would be awarded gold, Jamaica silver, and the Bahamas bronze.

Johnson has claimed the case is "silly", and argued that he should not be penalised for the offence of a team-mate. The CAS suggested it was against disqualifying the rest of the team. But last month the British team was stripped of its 4x100 metres silver medal from the 2003 world championships after Dwain Chambers was banned for two years.

Young ran in the opening heat and semi-final in Sydney. He received a gold medal along with the four runners who took part in the final - Johnson, Alvin Harrison, Antonio Pettigrew and Calvin Harrison - and Angelo Taylor.

The case is further complicated by the fact Alvin Harrison has recently been charged by the US Anti-Doping Agency, along with three other Americans, in connection with an FBI investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, which allegedly supplied athletes with performance-enhancing substances. He has denied using drugs.