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 Gay received a one-year suspension on Friday after testing
positive for a banned anabolic steroid in 2013. All his results from
July 2012 onwards have been annulled and he has already returned his
relay silver medal to the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Still to be determined is whether his team mates - Trell Kimmons,
Justin Gatlin and Ryan Bailey - will also lose the Olympic silver
medals they won in London in 2012.
"Although our rules say clearly 'team forfeits medals', the IOC has
control of the medals for the Olympics," Nick Davies, deputy
secretary general for the International Association of Athletics
Federations (IAAF), said by email.
Athletics competitors must follow rules of the IAAF in the Olympics
but the IOC has the final say on matters including medals.
Gay was banned by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) subject to
appeal by the IAAF or the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Davies said the IAAF would reserve comment on Gay's suspension until
its doping review board had a chance to see the judgement from USADA
and either accepted or rejected the reduced sanction.
 Gay, the joint second fastest man of all-time, could have been
suspended for two years for his first doping offence but received a
shorter ban because of his substantial assistance in the
investigation of his case, USADA said.
"There's a lot for me to tell, my side," Gay, 31, said on Saturday
in an interview with his hometown newspaper, the Herald-Leader of
Lexington, Kentucky.
"But under the rules of USADA, they didn't want me to speak on the
case. But they definitely understand what happened, and USADA
understands that it was a mistake. That's why they're allowing me to
run this year."
The American 100 meters record holder is eligible to race again
beginning June 23 and, Reuters has learned, is making plans to
return to competition in July.
The IOC welcomed the decision to suspend Gay.
"We will take all necessary steps with regard to the Olympic Games
in line with our zero tolerance policy, and our full commitment to
the protection of the clean athletes," it said in a statement.
The IOC is expected to wait for the IAAF to make a decision on
disqualifying the U.S. team before taking action on the medals.
Should the Americans lose their medals, third place Trinidad and
Tobago and fourth-place finisher France could move up in the London
results.
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VARYING DECISIONS
The IOC has varied in the past on stripping medals from relay
squads.
All members of the U.S. men's 4x400 meters relay at the 2000
Olympics lost their medals after doping cases involving Antonio
Pettigrew and Jerome Young.
But the Olympic committee allowed U.S. runners in the 2004 Olympic
women's 4x400 meters relay final to keep their gold medals even
though squad member Crystal Cox, who competed only in the
preliminary round, was stripped of hers after admitting in 2010 she
had used anabolic steroids.
The IOC had also stripped the U.S. women's 4x100 and 4x400 relays of
their medals at the Sydney Games after Marion Jones' doping
admission but the Court of Arbitration for Sport reinstated medals
for all but Jones after an appeal.
The IAAF rule in place in 2012, however, stated clearly that all
relay members would lose their medals if there was a doping
violation.
USA Track & Field will not decide whether the U.S. team's
performance of 37.04 seconds in London will be considered a national
record until the IAAF and IOC have determined the status of the
medals and results, spokeswoman Jill Geer said.
(Reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh, North Carolina and Karolos
Grohmann in Berlin, editing by Nick Mulvenney)
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