The world governing athletics body will submit within 24 hours documents arguing that world 400 metres champion Jerome Young should have missed the 2000 Sydney Olympics after a positive dope test in the previous year.

Young won a gold medal in Sydney as a member of the U.S. 4x400 metres relay squad, anchored by five times Olympic champion Michael Johnson.

He had been cleared to compete by USA Track & Field despite testing positive for the steroid nandrolone in 1999.

International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) spokesman Nick Davies said on Thursday the papers would be given to the federation's arbitration panel.

"I can confirm the documents will be served within the next 24 hours," he said.

If arbitrators decide Young should have been banned for two years the International Olympic Committee (IOC) could then take away the six gold medals won by the U.S. 4x400 squad.

Davies said under the rules applying when the decision to clear Young was made the case would be initially referred to the IAAF's arbitration panel. He said a postal vote of the IAAF council had agreed the case should go to arbitration.

USA Track & Field could then decide whether the case would be heard by the IAAF panel or by the independent Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has ruled on all track and field doping offences committed after 2001. In either case, Davies, said, the decision would be binding on both parties.

Both the IOC and the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) were outraged that Young was allowed to compete in Sydney after he had been cleared in a secret hearing.

The case did not become public knowledge until he was named in an American newspaper after winning the world 400 title in Paris last August. He has denied ever committing an offence.

This year the USOC threatened to remove USA Track & Field's governing powers if it did not release all its documents relating to the case. This month the American body finally agreed to hand over all its papers and apologised for any difficulties it had given the Olympic movement.

The IAAF had already been preparing its own case arguing that Young had committed a doping offence which should have resulted in a two-year ban.

"We will have no comment until we have received and read the documents," USA Track & Field spokeswoman Jill Geer said.