Athletics: Birmingham Shreds Gatlin Posters

Fast Track, the organiser of Britain's televised events, has had to spend £2,000 to replace advertising material featuring Justin Gatlin that was being used to promote a major meeting this month, after the Olympic 100 metres champion and world record-holder tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.

Giant posters had been erected at strategic sites in Birmingham to publicise the four-nation match featuring Britain, the United States, China and Russia at the Alexander Stadium on August 19-20. Gatlin had been expected to compete as part of a three-event deal signed with Fast Track but he is now facing a life ban after testing positive for testosterone, the second occasion he has failed a drugs test.

Ian Stewart, the meeting director for Britain's televised events, is now trying to establish whether Gatlin's agent, the former 110m hurdles world record-holder Renaldo Nehemiah, knew about the positive test when the £250,000 deal to run in Britain's three leading meetings was negotiated, although none of the money has been paid out.

Gatlin had been expected to race in Gateshead in June against Asafa Powell, the Jamaican with whom he shares the world record, but he withdrew because he claimed the weather would be too cold. Then he said that he could not run in the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace last Friday because of an unspecified injury.

This week Nehemiah sent an email to the senior directors of Europe's top meetings saying that until recently he had had no knowledge of Gatlin's positive test. That message has failed to placate Stewart. "We're looking into that situation with the IAAF [International Association of Athletics Federations] and our lawyers" he said.

The posters in Birmingham were due to be pulled down last night and replaced with others featuring athletes who will take part in the meeting, including China's Olympic 110m hurdles champion Liu Xiang, competing in Europe for the first time since he broke Colin Jackson's 13-year-old world record in Lausanne last month.

Meanwhile Hungary's top sprinter Gabor Dobos has also tested positive for raised levels of testosterone and, like Gatlin, faces a life ban. His test sample was taken on May 27 in Riga. Dobos, who is awaiting the analysis of his B sample, served a two-year ban after a failed test in 2000.