World champion sprinter Justin Gatlin has accepted an eight-year ban for a second doping offence.

The American joint world record holder over 100 metres had been facing a lifetime ban from the sport after testing positive for a banned anabolic drug, possibly testosterone, at a Kansas City meeting on April 22.

But, the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced on Tuesday that Gatlin had decided to accept the accuracy of the laboratory results and that it constituted a doping violation.

Along with the ban, Gatlin will lose the world record mark of 9.77 seconds he set in Doha on May 12 - which he shared with Jamaican Asafa Powell.

The 24-year-old will not be able to compete again until he is 32 years old, and will miss the prime years for a sprinter. Many believe it is unlikely Gatlin will ever compete on the world stage.

"Gatlin has agreed to cooperate with USADA by providing information that may assist in USADA's anti-doping efforts," a statement from the drug-fighting agency said.

"In exchange for Gatlin's promise to cooperate and in recognition of the exceptional circumstances of his prior violation, USADA has agreed that the maximum period of suspension for this violation would be eight years."

The agency said the disgraced sprinter would still have the right to appeal to an arbritation panel in the next six months to have the ban reduced, but he cannot now argue that the test was faulty.

US Track and Field chief executive Craig Masback said he was happy that Gatlin had accepted responsibility but nevertheless he was still disappointed in him.

"Justin Gatlin's doping case has been a setback for our sport," said Masback. "While we are glad Justin has taken responsibility for his positive test and will cooperate in USADA's anti-doping efforts, we are sorely disappointed in him.

"Our Zero Tolerance programme is focused on educating athletes about the importance of winning with integrity. This case is a clear signal that we must redouble our efforts and seek ways to deter drug use and to punish anyone who may influence athletes to use drugs."

Gatlin had painted himself as a role model for the anti-doping movement, despite a positive test for an amphetamine in 2001, when he was still a student at the University of Tennessee.

He argued then that it was contained in a medication he was prescribed for attention deficit disorder and was reinstated before serving all of a two-year ban.

By agreeing to cooperate with USADA in the fight against drugs, Gatlin avoided a lifetime ban, but at 24 years old, his career as a top athletics star is still effectively over unless he wins a substantial reduction.

Gatlin himself announced his failed doping test on July 29, but insisted that he had never knowingly used any banned substance.

His controversial coach Trevor Graham hit back that Gatlin had tested positive for drugs due to the revenge actions of a masseur who applied testosterone green on him without his knowledge.

The test that produced the positive result came just weeks before Gatlin matched Powell's 100m world record of 9.77sec at a meeting in Doha.

Gatlin is among an elite group of athletes - including Americans Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene and Canadian Donovan Bailey - to hold the world and Olympic titles along with the world record.

In addition to his 100m gold, he earned Olympic bronze in the 200m and a silver in the 4x100m relay in 2004. Last year in Helsinki he added the 100m world title and also captured the 200m crown.

With his performance in Doha, he was briefly credited with sole possession of the coveted world record with a time of 9.76sec, but the time was later officially revised to 9.77 - tying the mark Powell set in Athens on June 14, 2005.

The USADA statement said that the ban on Gatlin would begin on August 15, 2006 and end "with credit given since the time Gatlin began serving a provisional suspension on July 25" on July 24 2014. All his results subsequent to the failed test on April 22, including his world record run in May, will be scrapped, it added.

(China Daily August 24, 2006)