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Badminton body to get tough on drug abuse

The International Badminton Federation proposes to impose tougher measures, including a two-year ban, on drug cheats.

Badminton Association of India sources said the IBF executive, which had endorsed the anti-doping declaration presented at the IOC world conference at Lausanne in February, wanted to prevent the "ignorace clause" from becoming a possible defence in badminton, like it is in some other sports including tennis.

The IBF was considering changes in rules to eliminate dead encounters in the final matches of the Thomas and Uber Cups, as also qualifying zones, in order to improve the entertainment value of the game, sources said.

The proposal that matches would cease in the finals of both men's and women's events once either team reached a winning lead, in order to eliminate dead encounters, would be considered by the IBF at its annual meeting to be held at Copenhagen shortly.

With the changes in the seedings and schedule provisions, the badminton event at the Sydney Olympics of 2000 is expected to attract record crowds. There would be eight seeds in all five events, regardless of the] number of entries, and the rest day in all events would be before the semifinals so that the better players reached the later stages, IBF sources said.

UNI