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Hellebuyck Receives Two-Year Suspension
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) on Dec. 9 handed down a two-year suspension to Eddy Hellebuyck after he tested positive for recombinant human Erythropoietin (r-EPO). The Belgian-born Hellebuyck, 43, now a U.S. citizen, tested positive for r-EPO during an out-of-competition test conducted on January 31, 2004 by USADA prior to the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.
According to a press release, the suspension followed a full evidentiary hearing before a three-member panel of the American Arbitration Association (AAA)/North American Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). The AAA/CAS panel reconfirmed the scientific validity of the r-EPO test and the UCLA laboratory’s application of the test in the analysis of Hellebuyck’s urine sample. The panel found that “No reasonable conclusion can be reached other than the [athlete] used r-EPO.”
The suspension is retroactive to the date of the test, January 31, 2004, and all of Hellebuyck's competitive results are disqualified from that date, including his eighth place finish (2:15:36) at the 2004 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials in Birmingham, AL, in February.
Hellebuyck represented Belgium
at the 1996 Olympics. He set a U.S. masters record of 2:12:46 at the 2003
Twin Cities Marathon.
