Ottey withdrew from Jamaica's team to the upcoming World Championship in Seville, Spain, after the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) revealed that the 39-year-old Ottey had tested positive for the anabolic steroid Nandrolone at a meet in Switzerland on July 5.

The veteran sprinter is the third major track athlete to have tested positive for an illegal substance in as many weeks. At the recent Pan Am Games in Winnipeg, Canada, officials disclosed that they discovered traces of cocaine in the urine sample of Cuba's Olympic and World Championship gold medalist Javier Sotomayor.

In early August, the IAAF reported that 1992 Olympic 100 metres champion, Jamaican-born Linford Christie, returned positive samples of Nandrolone at a meet in Dortmund,Germany. Christie and Ottey have been training partners for some time.

Ottey is 39, the same age as Christie, athletics' other high-profile athlete who tested positive for Nandrolone during a winter meet. It is a fact that many of those athletes who have been found recently are on the verge of retiring or retiring age. Probably they are more inclined to use food supplements to extend their career an extra few years.

Dr Paul Wright, who has been team physician for several Jamaican track teams at major meets, opined: ``At most, 90 per cent of international athletes are on drugs and they are going to get caught one by one,'' Wright declared.

Ottey has won 34 medals in major championships, including three golds at the Worlds. She has won seven Olympic medals, five bronzes and two silvers, but no golds. Her five third spot placings influenced American commentators to cruelly dub her the `bronze queen'.

The IAAF bombshell comes one week after the respected American publication, Track And Field News,named Ottey as its leading female athlete of the 1990s.

Ottey's moment of glory came at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, when she led from start to finish to win the 200 metres. Many took the victory personally as they did the ups and downs of her athletic career.

``The entire nation rejoices with you. You have brought home the gold. There never has been a more deserving victor. You deserve your moment of glory,'' Prime Minister, Percival Patterson wrote in a letter to Ottey then.

That year she was named ambassador at large by the Jamaica government, one of several civic honours she has received from the country. Along with West Indies cricketer Courtney Walsh, Merlene Ottey is the most celebrated of Jamaica's modern athletes. She was Jamaican sportswoman of the year 15 times between 1979 and 1997. She has also dabbled in modelling and fashion designing.

Not since Donald Quarrie, the sprinter who won the 200 metres at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, has an athlete had such an impact ina country where track and field has an impressive history.

Born in the rural western parish of Hanover, Ottey starred at the local girls championship before being granted a scholarship to Nebraska University in the United States where her prowess in the sprint events made her a collegiate star.

Ottey was earmarked as one-for-the-future following her bronze medal run as a 19-year-old at the Moscow Games. But Olympic triumph has proved elusive. At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles she placed third in both sprint events. Another bronze came at the 1992 Games.

Ottey's best chance of a gold medal came at the Atlanta Games but she was caught and beaten close to home by the Martinique-born Perec -- a runner who lists the Jamaican as a major influence on her career.

But Ottey's career has not been without controversy. She has had a tempestuous relationship with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association which she has consistently accused of failing to support her.

After being awarded the 200 metres event atthe 1995 World Championships in Gothenberg, Sweden, Ottey charged that American Gwen Torrence ``who was disqualified for running out of her lane'' had deliberately cheated.

For years, Ottey's admirers have claimed that she has been forced to play second fiddle to pumped-up opponents. Observers now say her illustrious career is in danger of being sidetracked by those very charges.

But Ottey's agent, Daniel Zimmerman, said the sprinter would fight to clear her name. ``She is a strong personality that has given the sport something for the last 20 years and she does not want that taken away,'' he said. ``She will fight this; she will get the best help possible from all sides.''

Since 1979, Ottey has been tested approximately 100 times and all results were negative, her management company FKG said. The most recent tests in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on May 12, and in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 30, also have shown negative results, the group said.