SAINT-DENIS, France -- The head of the World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday that the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team should be stripped of its gold medal from the Sydney Olympics following allegations that sprinter Jerome Young failed a drug test a year before the games.

Young, who won gold in the 400 meters Tuesday night at the World Championships, tested positive for a banned steroid in 1999 but was cleared by U.S. track officials and competed in the 2000 Games, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

	“	"It's a total whitewash. I think U.S. Track & Field was deliberately ignoring IAAF rules. ”
		— Dick Pound

It had been known that an American gold medalist tested positive before the Sydney Olympics, but the name was not released by U.S. Olympic or track and field officials. The Times report cited documents and unidentified track sources familiar with the case.

Dick Pound, president of the anti-doping agency, told The Associated Press it had long been suspected in Olympic circles that the athlete was Young. Now that his name has been disclosed, Pound said, the U.S. team should be disqualified and the medals stripped.

"You now have somebody who was not eligible to be entered in the Olympics but who participated and won a gold medal," he said. "If it was doing the right thing, the USOC would tender the medals back before the IOC was forced to act."

Young declined an interview request made Wednesday by the AP through USA Track & Field. His coach said he was unaware of any positive test. The sport's world governing body and USA Track & Field said they couldn't comment on the report and were bound by an arbitration ruling not to release the name.

Young collected a gold medal as a member of the relay squad in Sydney. He ran the first leg in the opening round and semifinal heats but didn't run in the final. The U.S. team, anchored by Michael Johnson, won the gold ahead of the Jamaicans and Russians.

Pound, a senior IOC member, said he would write to IOC president Jacques Rogge said asking for the medals to be revoked.

Under the IOC charter, Olympic results can be challenged within three years of the games' closing ceremony. The Sydney Olympics were held Sept. 15-Oct. 1, 2000 -- leaving exactly five weeks to deal with the U.S. relay case.

"First and foremost, the allegations need to be proved," Rogge said.

If a confirmed doping offense occurred outside the Olympics, it would be up to the International Association of Athletics Federations to handle disciplinary action, Rogge said. Only after that could the IOC get involved.

"We always knew that there was one positive case. Any proof to confirm who that case was would lift the suspicion on the other athletes."

As a precedent, Pound cited the doping case of Russian cross-country skier Larissa Lazutina, who was retroactively stripped of medals from the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

In June, the IOC took away two silver medals and annulled a fourth-place finish after Lazutina lost a series of appeals for her doping suspension.

Young, a native of Jamaica who became a U.S. citizen in 1995, was a surprise winner Tuesday night in the 400. He's scheduled to run on the U.S. 1,600-meter relay squad this weekend.

The Times reached one of his lawyers, Anita Raman of New York, who declined to comment.

Raymond Stewart, Young's coach for the past year, said he knew nothing about it and lamented the timing of the report.

"If no one knows you, who cares?" Stewart said. "But if you did something like he did, you wait until his big day to dig up dirt on the past and make a scandal."

The Times reported that Young tested positive for the performance-enhancing steroid nandrolone on June 26, 1999. He tested negative for banned substances two weeks before and six days after that test, the newspaper reported.

Young was suspended in April 2000 for the doping violation but his name was blacked out on the suspension document, according to the newspaper. His suspension was overturned July 10 of that year by an appeals board. The reasons for the decision to clear Young were not given in the report.

Less than a week later, Young finished fourth at the U.S. trials for the Sydney Olympics, earning a slot on the relay team.

"It's a total whitewash," Pound said. "I think U.S. Track & Field was deliberately ignoring IAAF rules."

USATF said Wednesday that all doping cases from 1996-2000 have been closed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

"Both USA Track & Field and the IAAF agreed that the arbitration is final and binding, and we respect their decision," USATF said.

The arbitration court, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, ruled in January that USATF does not have to release the names of 13 athletes who failed drug tests from 1996-2000. The case centered primarily on the unidentified Sydney gold medalist.

USATF officials have maintained they were allowed to keep the name secret because the athlete was cleared and never banned.

The IAAF, which originally condemned the USATF's refusal to release the names of those athletes, said Wednesday the case was closed.

"We have nothing to say. The matter came to an end when the arbitration decision was announced," IAAF general secretary Istvan Gyulai said.

Drug testing is no longer overseen by sports federations such as the USATF, but instead by agencies including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency. The International Olympic Committee oversees drug tests at the Olympics.