Topic: News: Doping To Be A Key Focus at Asian Games

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Doping To Be A Key Focus at Asian Games

SINGAPORE - Drugs have tainted sport this year and how countries fare at the Asian Games will be closely monitored by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee.

It is the last major multi-sport event before the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and as Olympic host and prior offender, China will be in the spotlight.

But so will countries like India, Iran and Pakistan whose names have been tarnished by doping scandals this year.

China’s international sporting reputation was severely damaged in the 1990s following several high-profile drug cases, particularly in swimming and running events, and it has never fully recovered.

It took another hit this year when one of its best athletes, world 5,000m bronze medallist Sun Yingjie, was banned for two years for failing a dope test at China’s National Games.

And in September four athletes, whose names were not revealed but who compete in weightlifting and wrestling, were caught taking performance-enhacing drugs at a provincial meeting.

The case followed hot on the heels of revelations that teachers at an athletics school were caught injecting teenagers with testosterone, a growth hormone often used to build muscle strength, and EPO, a blood doping agent used in endurance sports.

It prompted World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound to warn China it must step up the number of drug tests imposed on athletes and put an end to any “funny business” that may occur in out-of-competition testing.

Positive tests for China at the Asian Games would be a major embarrassment for a country that insists it is cleaning up its act.

Traditionally, most positive results come in sports like weightlifting, bodybuilding and wrestling.

Weightlifting has been hit hard by scandals this year with the entire Indian team slapped with a 12-month ban from competition for doping offences.

The ban is effective until March next year after two male lifters, Edwin Raju and Tejinder Singh, tested positive during the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

Two women, Prameelavalli Bodari and Shailaja Pujari, failed pre-Games tests and were banned by India from making the trip to Australia.

All four were banned for life by the Indian weightlifting federation.

The fate of the Iranian weightlifting team remains up in the air after nine of their 11-strong squad was banned from the world championships in October after they all tested positive for excess levels of testosterone.

World and Olympic champion Hossein Rezazadeh — the country’s most famous athlete — was not among them and will compete in Doha.

Meanwhile, athletes from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal tested positive for banned substances at the South Asian Games in August.

Three of them were named as Pakistani boxers, Nauman Karim and Dur Mahmud, and Sri Lankan woman sprinter Jani Chathurangani de Silva.

Asian Games officials will conduct 1,200 tests at competition venues and the athletes’ village during the December 1-15 event, with blood tests carried out for the first time ever at an Asiad.

Breath testing will also take place in the Islamic nation where alcohol is forbidden. All samples will be analysed at King’s College in London.

The last Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, passed with just one positive drug test — for Indian middle distance runner Sunita Rani who was stripped of her 1,500m gold and 5,000m bronze medals.

Lebanese weightlifter Youssef El Zein had his bronze medal taken away after refusing to take a dope test.