DENVER — U.S. Olympic officials on Friday denied accusations they turned a blind eye to athletes who used performance enhancing drugs, a charge leveled in a lawsuit by a former medical staffer who is also alleging racial discrimination.

‘Substantially all of his allegations are untrue, unsubstantiated or irrelevant,’ Scott Blackmun, U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) senior managing director of sports resources told reporters in a telephone conference after Dr. Wade Exum leveled his charges in a Denver press conference.

Exum, 51, earlier this week sued the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based USOC in federal court, alleging officials undermined anti-doping programmes so effectively that half the U.S. athletes who have tested positive in recent years saw no sanctions.

The matter is complicated because Exum, who is black, has also alleged racial discrimination and said the USOC reneged on a pledge to promote him to medical director from director of drug control administration.

Exum resigned in protest in June. ‘It was a forced resignation by people who stood to gain by me not being there,’ he on Friday.

‘The place was like a ‘good old boy’s club.” Exum said.

USOC officials denied racial discrimination against Exum who was hired in 1991 and said they tried to get specifics from him about his charges of laxity in drug testing.

‘I asked Dr. Exum on a number of occasions to provide me with specifics,’ Blackmun said. ‘He refused to do that.’

Reuters

Source: SOCOG