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New agency to head fight against drugs

The International Olympic Committee on Thursday proposed the setting up of an anti-doping agency to coordinate the worldwide fight against performance-enhancing drugs.

Calling for the creation of an "Olympic movement anti-doping agency" that would be responsible for random, out-of-competition drug testing around the world, the IOC finally signalled that it was ready to stop talking and begin cracking down on growing substance abuse.

The measure was announced after an emergency one day meeting of the IOC executive, summoned after drug abuse took centre stage in the recent Tour de France.

IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who had earlier this month kicked up a controversy when he said it was perhaps time to remove some of the drugs from the list of banned substances, said the proposed agency would be funded by Olympic television revenues, and would assist those international federations which can't afford regular drug-testing programs.

Simultaneously, the IOC would also help set up testing labs in Africa and Central and South America, and create a "flying lab" that would travel to major events around the world to conduct testing.

The new agency will be headquartered in Lausanne and headed by an IOC official, but would be under the aegis of all Olympic bodies and not just the apex body. The structure and funding of the agency will be finalised after the plan is approved at a special worldwide doping summit in Lausanne next February.

While the IOC's medical commission chairman Prince Alexandre de Merode said that the new agency, when set up, would add teeth to the body's anti-drug crusade, he added that the Olympic movement would never succeed in completely eliminating the problem.

"We will never win, we will never eliminate doping," he said.

Simultaneously, four IOC vice presidents have been deputed to head task forces on four related topics, ahead of the February summit. The four topics are the protection of athletes political and legal issues including the definition of doping, prevention and education, financial questions including the commercial pressures which can lead to drug use and the issue of financing the anti-doping fight

Clarifying his controversy-stirring remarks on drugs, Samaranch told the crowded media conference: "I never said performance-enhancing drugs must be withdrawn from the list. I would like to ask the medical commission to review the list, like they are doing from time to time. Maybe we need to put the list up to date.

"As for performance-enhancing drugs, there is not a single one that is not harming the health of the athletes. We will not withdraw one single performance-enhancing drug which we have on the list.

"Doping is something we can not permit. First, we have an obligaton to protect the health of the athletes, and second, it's a kind of cheating we can not accept in sport."

The controversy occured when Samaranch in an interview said maybe it was time to remove those drugs from the banned list that did not directly impact on the health of the athletes.

The IOC boss said the next big challenge would be to get all Olympic sports federations to approve the IOC's proposed medical code, which would unify testing, procedures and sanctions.

"Even if the agency works in the right way, we must have the approval of a single medical code for all the international federations," he said. "It's not possible that a drug is permitted in one federation and not in another."

The IOC will also push for further involvement by governments and national law enforcement agencies in cracking down on drug producers and traffickers. The world's major drug manufacturers will be invited to the February summit.

Agencies