The United States Anti-Doping Agency announced Friday that a three-member arbitration panel has ruled that track sprinter Tammy Thomas has committed a doping violation, her second in two years, and ordered the 32-year-old Colorado Springs resident be banned from competition for life.

The three member panel of the American Arbitration Association (AAA)/North American Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found sufficient evidence to support a positive doping test involving the prohibited substance norbolethone.

Thomas tested positive in an out-of-competition test in Chula Vista, Calif. on March 14, 2002 for norbolethone, an anabolic agent, which is a prohibited substance under the Union Cycliste International (UCI) rules and the Olympic anti-doping code. Thomas’s lifetime suspension is slated to begin tomorrow, one day after today’s arbitration ruling. Thomas faced a lifetime suspension because this is her second positive drug test. She was suspended for a year following a positive test for an elevated testosterone level at the 2000 U.S. Olympic trials. A silver medalist at the 2001 World Championships in the sprint competition, Thomas ranks among the top 10 in the UCI World Cup rankings in the sprint (second) and 500-meter time trial (ninth) events. Competing at the recent master's national championships in Colorado Springs, Thomas established a new national 200-meter time trial record. Thomas was also a member of the World Cup winning U.S. track squad that bested second-place Germany by 19 points.Current USA Cycling and UCI rules contain no provision for abolishing that record, nor do the rules negate any of the 43 World Cup points Thomas earned as a member of the U.S. team, even though the record and the points were earned after Thomas’s positive test. Spokesmen for both organizations have said in the past that they plan to address that issue in the future.

The CAS panel has indicated that USADA will receive its findings at a later date. USADA will release the findings on that date.