Courtesy SwimNews. Jessica Hardy, the US swimmer, has been cleared to compete at the 2012 London Olympics if she makes the United States team next year, despite a doping ban in 2008.

The International Olympic Committee had declared her ineligible to compete in 2012 because of a rule that bars from the next Olympics any athlete who serves a doping ban of six months or more.

Hardy tested positive for a banned drug, clenbuterol, in 2008, three days after that regulation was put in and shortly before the Beijing Olympics. She received a one-year suspension. The IOC said she could have never known about the new rule, according to Howard Jacobs, her lawyer.

Hardy had her suspension reduced to six months in the US and lost her place on the US Olympic team. She was not, however, exonerated nor pardoned. Opinion is divided on her case, some believing that she was an innocent victim of circumstance and that she never intended to cheat, others believing that it matters little how the substance got there or whether she intended to cheat - the fact is that a banned substance was there and under the rules of responsibility that govern all athletes and what ends up in their bodies, it was right that Hardy should serve a suspension.

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US Swim Star Hardy has 2012 Olympics at risk
Sep 29, 2008