Topic: News: WADA chief again looks into Chinese doping with Olympics coming

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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WADA chief again looking into China doping with 2008 Olympics a year away

BEIJING: The head of the World Anti-Doping Agency is returning to China to repeat a message he delivered on a visit 10 months ago: do more tests and crack down on China-based suppliers of performance-enhancing drugs sold on the Internet.

Dick Pound said he'll also call on China to "go the extra mile" to persuade the world that it isn't hiding top athletes from drug tests with the 2008 Beijing Olympics just a year away.

"If you come here (to the Olympics) with 1,000 athletes that nobody has ever seen before and you win all the medals, it is not going to be a successful games — it's going to be a disaster," Pound said in a telephone call, previewing his message.

China is intent on staging grandiose games to showcase its rising political and economic power. Pound said his message would remind high-ranking officials that one positive drug test for a Chinese athlete could turn the Olympics into public-relations disaster for the communist government.

"The central government, I think, is pretty committed to having an effective anti-doping program," Pound said. "They more than anyone understand the risk, reputational and otherwise."

Pound is to meet in mid-September with top officials of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee, including President Liu Qi, and Liu Peng, head of both the Chinese Olympic Committee and the national sports ministry.

In an interview this week with the Associated Press, the Canadian IOC member said he was unsure how much progress China had made. He promised his message again would "be very direct."

China has been under suspicion since doping scandals of the mid-1990s when several dozen swimmers were banned. Last year, students at the Liaoning Anshan Sports School in northeastern China were caught using performance-enhancing drugs including EPO, steroids and testosterone.

Officials at the school were charged with "collective doping." In 2002, officials at another nearby sports school were also charged with same offense.

"We've tried to persuade them that they should make this effort because they do have a record which is not generally known or acknowledged in China," Pound said. "But everybody outside of China knows it."

Zhao Jian, head of Anti-Doping Commission for the Chinese Olympic Committee, said in June that tests this year would increase to 10,000 from 9,000 last year — with 70 percent out-of-competition.

He said a pool of about 2,000 elite athletes was being targeted in sports where China usually does well — weightlifting, swimming, athletics, wresting, cycling and rowing.

China conducted only 165 tests in 1990.

"It's not fair how they think of us," Zhao said in a recent interview. "Yes, there were scandals but we've already learned the lesson and we are making progress. From the 1990s, whatever difficulties we've faced we've never hidden any positive cases."

Pound acknowledged the increased testing, but said it's still too little.

"They're increasing the number of tests but they're not doing as many as they probably should," he said. "I think they are doing about the same as Australia — not many considering the different population sizes."

Australia has 20.5 million people and China has 1.3 billion — about 63 times more.

Pound said he would press Chinese officials to set up an independent anti-doping body to oversee nationwide tests. He said out-of-competiton testing was problematic, describing China as a "big complicated country" with resistance to central authority in the provinces much as officials in Texas might dismiss initiatives from Washington.

"We want to get them to address having an independent anti-doping agency — insofar as you can be independent of the government in China," Pound said.

Pound said he was confident drug testing during the Olympics "will be done well" in a newly designed laboratory.

"They are not running from this and they know they are dealing with an international agency in WADA," Pound said. "They look like they'd like to do the right thing."

Pound said he would also be pushing for a crackdown on Internet sites in China that sell banned performance-enhancing drugs like EPO, testosterone, human growth hormone and steroids.

"You name it, it's all over the Internet," Pound said.

"It's a big problem and a big country," he added. "They are like the United States, which would like to be drug free but it's not. There are pockets in sports, teams, clubs that are actively involved in doping and have no real intention of changing unless they get caught."

The United States has been shaken by its own drug scandals. Justin Gatlin, the 100-meter gold medalist at the Athens Olympics, tested positive for testosterone and steroids in April 2006 but said he didn't know how the banned drugs got into his system.

Marion Jones, the only woman to win five track and field medals in an Olympics, has long been dogged by suspicions of doping, but she has never conclusively tested positive for a banned substance.

"It's at a point where no nation is very well served if an individual goes to the games and has a positive drug test," said Steven Roush, chief of sport performance for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "It hurts across the board even though it could be one individual acting on their own, it's still a reflection on the entire nation."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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China reports drop in doping, focuses on weightlifters

Beijing - Chinese sports officials on Monday reported a record low of 0.2 per cent positive doping tests last year but warned of continuing problems in sports such as weightlifting. Fifteen positive results from 10,238 tests last year was the lowest ratio since China began its fight against doping in 1990, state media quoted sports minister Liu Peng as saying.

"We always take the zero-tolerance stand towards doping cheats and will try our best to make sure that we send a clean Chinese squad to the Beijing Olympic games," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Liu as saying at a national meeting of top sports officials.

The tests in 2007 included 8,856 on Chinese athletes.

But Jiang Zhixue, head of the ministry's anti-doping work, said sports such as weightlifting remained a "minefield" for officials.

"Seven positive cases were found in weightlifting events, accounting for almost half of the total last year," including two national team members, the agency quoted Jiang as saying.

"This awoke us to the fact that there are certain loopholes in national teams' management, although we are making headway in doping control," he said.

In November, China formally relaunched its anti-doping agency in a new high-technology centre that will support the campaign to root out drug users in sport and serve next year's Olympics.

During the Olympics in August, the staff will increase from 60 to about 150, including some 20 foreign experts, the Beijing Olympic organizing committee said.

The International Olympic Committee plans to conduct 4,500 doping tests at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, up from 3,600 in Athens.

But some international athletics officials have expressed concern that the world's most populous nation is not doing enough to prevent doping.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) last year also urged Chinese officials to do more to combat the sale of doping substances made in China and sold over the internet.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Chinese anti-doping fight creates new low in positive rate

BEIJING, Jan. 7 (Xinhua) -- Chinese anti-doping fight saw the lowest positive rate in history in 2007 in their run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games, senior Chinese sports official Liu Peng said here on Monday.

Liu said at a meeting with heads of provincial sports bureaus that 15 positive cases were found in 2007 when a record-high of 10,238 tests were conducted.

The head of China's State General Administration of Sports (SGAS) said that among all the tests, the Chinese anti-doping center were entrusted by other countries and regions to carry out 1,382 while 8,856 were for the Chinese athletes.

"The positive rate is less than 0.2%, which stands as a new low since China started to conduct doping tests," said Liu.

China started doping tests in 1990 when 165 tests were done.

"We always take the zero-tolerance stand towards doping cheats and will try our best to make sure that we send a clean Chinese squad to the Beijing Olympic Games," he added.

For the Science and Education department which is responsible for doping control in SGAS, they were filled with mixed feelings.

Department chief Jiang Zhixue revealed that certain events such as weightlifting still remain the dangerous mine field.

"Seven positive cases were found in weightlifting event, accounting for almost half of the total last year," said Jiang. "Acouple of national team members were caught."

"This awoke us to the fact that there are certain loopholes in national teams' management although we are making headway in doping control," he said.