After his initial reaction to yesterday’s rejection of his appeal against a two-year ban, Traves Smikle, the national record holder in the men’s discus throw event, has not given up hopes that he could be competing again before June this year.

Dalton Myers, a spokesman for the 22-year-old Olympian, told the Jamaica Observer yesterday that Smikle was “upbeat” after speaking to his lawyers and advisors and they were confident there were other areas they could pursue as he seeks to “clear his name” of doping.

In a hearing held at the Jamaica Conference Centre in Kingston yesterday, the four-member Appeals Panel, chaired by retired High Court Judge Howard Cooke, upheld the two-year ban that was imposed by a Disciplinary Committee last year June and which would expire on June 21 this year.

Smikle was banned in June 2014 after he had failed a drug test while competing at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) National Senior Championships at the National Stadium in June 2013.

A sample he submitted was found to contain the banned drug hydrochlorothiazide, but according to Myers, the 22-year-old who represented Jamaica at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, is maintaining his innocence.

Initially, Myers had said on a television broadcast that they could be heading to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS), but yesterday he said there were other areas they could pursue.

“We think we have enough information to have this ban overturned,” Myers said. “After he spoke to his lawyers, we think there are still more issues we can deal with.”

Smikle’s lawyer, Canada-based attorney Dr Emir Crowne via teleconference, argued that Smikle’s two-year-ban should be cancelled or reduced to a public warning on the ground that his urine sample was contaminated in a similar manner and on the same day as Veronica Campbell-Brown’s, whose two-year-ban was reversed by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS) in February 2014.

However, Lackston Robinson, who again represented the Jamaica Anti-doping Commission, argued that Smikle’s two-year ban should stay in effect, as the circumstances of his sample collection were different.

Last June, the disciplinary panel, comprising Kent Pantry, Juliet Cuthbert Flynn and Dr Irvin Crandon, slapped the former World Youth bronze medallist with a two-year ban, despite the argument by his then attorney Dr Lloyd Barnett, that his case should have been dismissed on similar grounds to that of Campbell-Brown at CAS.

Smikle set the National Record of 57.12m while winning the discus throw event at the JAAA National Senior Trials in 2012.

Three years earlier, the former Calabar High student had created Jamaican track and field history when he won a bronze medal at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Brixen-Bressanone, Italy, the first time a Jamaican athlete was winning a medal in a throwing event at an IAAF-level competition.

SMIKLE… will continue to fight on