Agency hopes for global sports doping code by 2004

Dick Pound, the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said on Sunday he hoped international standards dealing with doping can be in place by the Athens Olympics in 2004.

But the Canadian lawyer, a losing candidate in July's International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidential election, admitted only a change in attitude will ultimately stamp drugs out of sport.

"I suspect there may be a generation of athletes that will only stop doping if they think they are going to caught. The long range programme is to develop a culture where it is just not acceptable," Pound told Reuters in an interview.

He believes the current situation is confusing as countries have different rules regarding doping.

Unified rules will simplify that and WADA will help sporting bodies that face potentially crippling lawsuits from athletes banned for failing a doping test.

"By the time we get to Athens we hope to have a uniform code accepted by the public authorities and the Olympic movement. So if you get a positive test...you don't get a situation where an aggrieved athlete says "I don't like this and I'm going to go to the courts in my own country"," he added.

"One of the services we can provide for those federations is to take the worry out of that. We will say here is a package. We have done the test, we have done the analysis...All you have to do is apply your rules. You can look to us (including financially)," he said.

Pound -- speaking ahead of a two-day meeting of WADA's foundation board in the Estonian capital Tallinn -- said the biggest challenge is to devise reliable tests as drugs become harder to spot but unified code will be a stronger deterrent to athletes thinking about using banned substances.

Performance-enhancing drugs -- some old and notorious, others new and dangerous -- dominated talk around the world athletics championships in Edmonton earlier this month where the governing body announced three positive tests. Others failed tests before the event and were unable to compete.

At its Tallinn meeting WADA will choose Lausanne -- the agency's temporary headquarters since it was set up in 1999 -- Montreal or Vienna as the home for its permanent home.

From 10 initial bids five were shortlisted but a report from the agency ruled out the candidacies of Stockholm and Bonn. Pound said laws local laws in the three remaining cities will have little impact on which one wins.

"I don't think there is much difference in the substantive provisions in the law in...any of the country's," Pound said.

"Our commission has identified three of the five finalists as somewhat better than the other two but in one sense I think if you put all five in a jar and drew one out we would be happy," he added.