Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: United States, Olympics, Athletics
Ryan Smart
A former US Olympic gold medallist was stripped of his 100-metre world record - before being sent to prison years later for a separate matter.
Tim Montgomery, from South California, won Olympic gold in the 4x100-metre relay event at Sydney 2000.
He competed in round one and the second-round heats before being replaced for the semi-final and final.
Two years later, in 2002, Montgomery ran a time of 9.78 seconds to beat the previous record set by US team-mate Maurice Greene, who ran 9.79 in 1999.
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However, his time was removed from the record books after he was handed a two-year drug-related suspension by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in 2005.
CAS stated that a three-man panel had 'unanimously accepted evidence presented by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA)' that Montgomery had taken banned substances, including tetrahudrogestrinone (THG), provided by the Bay Area Labatory Co-operative (BALCO).
The US federal government had launched an investigation into BALCO, which was based in San Francisco, in 2002 over allegations of tax evasion, though the lab was also suspected of supplying anabolic steroids to athletes.
Team GB sprinter Dwain Chambers, baseball legend Barry Bonds and Montgomery's then-partner, three-time Olympic gold medallist Marion Jones, were among those implicated as part of the investigation. Chambers was given a two-year ban after testing positive for THG in 2003.
Montgomery, meanwhile, testified in front of a US federal grand jury in the same year after being called as a witness.
He later admitted in 2008 that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs, telling HBO: "Prior to the 2000 Olympic Games in Australia, I broke the rules.
"I used testosterone and then I used (H)GH four times a month. I have a gold medal that I'm sitting on that I didn't get with my own ability."
The circumstances surrounding Montgomery's case meant that he never failed a drugs test.
The BALCO scandal resulted from a syringe sent to USADA anonymously by Trevor Graham, who was Montgomery and Jones' former coach.
The steroid was identified as THG, which wasn't previously known to authorities as it had been chemically modified to avoid detection in drugs tests.
In May 2008, Montgomery was handed a 46-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges relating to a multi-million dollar bank fraud and money-laundering plot. His partner, Jones, served a six-month sentence for lying about her knowledge of the plot.
Later that year, Montgomery was given a further five-year sentence after pleading guilty to possessing more than 100g of heroin with intent to distribute.