T&T run­ner Se­moy Hack­ett will be el­i­gi­ble to com­pete in of­fi­cial ath­let­ics com­pe­ti­tions af­ter her 28-month ban comes to an end in April, next year.

This was con­firmed by the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Ad­min­is­tra­tions (NAAA) in a press re­lease, yes­ter­day.

Hack­ett's an­ti-dop­ing hear­ing was to be heard at the Court of Ar­bi­tra­tion for Sport's New York branch but a set­tle­ment was reached be­tween Hack­ett's lawyers and those of the In­ter­na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Ath­let­ics Fed­er­a­tions (IAAF) in Feb­ru­ary. Be­cause of a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty pro­vi­sion in the set­tle­ment, the NAAA said it was un­able to give de­tails apart from when the ban will con­clude.

"As a re­sult of a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty pro­vi­sion, de­tails of the agree­ment were nev­er made known to the pub­lic and, for the most part, will con­tin­ue to re­main con­fi­den­tial," the re­lease, signed by NAAA pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer, Pe­ter Samuel, was quot­ed.

It added: "Notwith­stand­ing this, the par­ties have agreed that due to the on­go­ing queries and in light of pub­lic in­ter­est (and) con­sid­er­a­tions, it would be ap­pro­pri­ate, at least, to dis­close the key el­e­ment of the set­tle­ment, which was the pe­ri­od of in­el­i­gi­bil­i­ty to be served by Ms Hack­ett.

The sanc­tion ac­cept­ed by Ms Hack­ett was a ban last­ing two years and four months end­ing on April 30, 2015. It means that Ms Hack­ett will once again be el­i­gi­ble to com­pete from May 1, 2015.

In con­clud­ing, the re­lease stat­ed that the NAAA will con­tin­ue to play its part in pro­mot­ing drug-free sport for all ath­letes and said it looks for­ward to the pend­ing op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the T&T An­ti-Dop­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TTA­DO), which was formed pur­suant to the An­ti-Dop­ing In Sport Act 2013. In June, 2012, Hack­ett test­ed pos­i­tive for methyl­hexa­neamine (MHA) at the Na­tion­al Col­le­giate Ath­let­ic As­so­ci­a­tion (NCAA) Di­vi­sion I Out­door Track and Field Cham­pi­onships. It was the sec­ond time Hack­ett test­ed pos­i­tive for MHA.

She served a six-month ban, fol­low­ing the 2011 T&T Cham­pi­onships.

She was then sus­pend­ed by the NAAA, af­ter the sec­ond of­fense, but the lo­cal gov­ern­ing body for ath­let­ics lift­ed the sanc­tion.

Last year, Hack­ett was sched­uled to par­tic­i­pate at the World Cham­pi­onships af­ter qual­i­fy­ing from the lo­cal cham­pi­onship.

How­ev­er, she left the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter the IAAF ap­pealed the NAAA's de­ci­sion to al­low Hack­ett to com­pete. The NAAA was sub­se­quent­ly crit­i­cised by Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts as the mat­ter "brought the coun­try in­to in­ter­na­tion­al dis­re­pute".

Hack­ett, 25, rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the 2008 Bei­jing Olympics.

?