There will be no Olympics this year for sprinter Justin Gatlin.

His appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on doping charges was rejected yesterday, three weeks before the United States holds its track trials.

The three-man CAS panel upheld the four-year ban given to the 26-year-old sprinter earlier this year by another arbitration panel.

Will continue to fight

Gatlin, whose ban will not expire until July 25, 2010, had hoped to have it reduced to two years, giving him a chance to defend his 100-metre Olympic title.

"I will continue to fight for my right to participate in the great sport of track and field in a time frame shorter than four years," Gatlin said in a statement.

The initial arbitration panel that reduced Gatlin's possible eight-year ban to four years essentially had offered up a blueprint for how Gatlin might conduct the appeal - eliminating his first doping offense in 2001 - but the CAS arbitrators didn't agree.

In their briefly worded decision, to be fleshed out later, the panel said the bulk of the original panel's decision was upheld.

CAS secretary general Matthieu Reeb portrayed the decision as a compromise.

"Justin Gatlin wanted to participate in the Beijing Games, the IAAF wanted to see a life ban imposed on him, but the CAS panel has unanimously decided that four years was the right sanction," Reeb said.

The only key difference was when the start of Gatlin's four-year penalty would begin; CAS delayed the start from May to July 2006, because that was when he voluntarily accepted his provisional suspension.

In his statement, Gatlin said he was pleased CAS didn't go the other direction and increase the ban. But he also said he was disappointed and keeping his legal options open.

"I have never been involved in any intentional doping scheme," Gatlin said. "And I think that CAS would not have rejected IAAF's position unless it also believed that I had not participated in any intentional doping."

Only other legal option

Reeb told The Associated Press the only legal option he knew of for Gatlin was to go before the Swiss Federal Tribunal, an appeal provided by Swiss law, because CAS is in Switzerland.

In the 24 years of CAS's existence, only one athlete has successfully challenged CAS in Swiss court, when Argentinian tennis player Guillermo Canas appealed a ruling about his use of a diuretic.

The court ordered CAS to revisit the appeal, but the arbitrators came to the same conclusion and Canas' 15-month doping ban was maintained.

Gatlin's attorney, Maurice Suh, did not spell out what legal options Gatlin was weighing and said no conclusion could be reached until he saw CAS's full decision.

Suh said the crux of Gatlin's argument was the concept of "proportionality" - that the penalty should fit the crime and that since Gatlin had not intentionally doped, there was no need to assess a lifetime penalty.