China believes it will come through the Olympics without doping scandals
Life bans for first offenders in run-up to games
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By Sami Sillanpää in Beijing
Chinese anti-doping officials believe that the country’s record-sized Olympic squad will come through the Beijing Games without any positive doping cases.
The confidence stems from the fact that China has carried out a record number of tests to ensure that its sporting representatives are clean, said Zhao Jian, the deputy director of the China Anti-Doping Agency, speaking at a press conference last Wednesday.
The agency reports it has performed 5,007 tests in the first seven months of this year on 2,000 Chinese top athletes.
The testing procedures conform to World Anti-Doping Agency WADA guidelines, and have been held in and out of competition and also without warning, according to Zhao.
“The focus has been on athletes in the Olympic team.”
The reputation of China’s state-run sports system was in the gutter in the 1990s, at least in swimming and track athletics, when a host of Chinese athletes swept to international titles, only to test positive shortly afterwards.
Before the Sydney Olympics of 2000, China suddenly dropped 40 members of the team scheduled to travel to Australia, when it was reported in public that testing procedures had been stepped up.
Since then, even according to outside observers, China has taken a tougher line on doping offences.
The successes have not dried up, all the same.
Four years ago in Athens, Chinese competitors collected 32 gold medals, and none of the team members was caught for cheating through performance-enhancing drugs.
Last autumn China established an anti-doping agency to oversee controls. It operates separately from the country’s Olympic Committee and the sports ministry, in an attempt to guarantee independence and impartiality.
China has taken a unflinching approach towards offenders in recent months, such that members of national teams receive lifetime bans even for a first doping positive, and their coaches get exactly the same treatment.
The Chinese Anti-Doping Agency reports that this year’s tests have thrown up positives from two top athletes and six other sportsmen competing at the provincial level.
The two most prominent busts were made public just over a month ago.
The country’s top male backstroke swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng and wrestler Luo Meng were both disqualified from competition for life.
Ouyang, who won three medals at the 2006 Asian Games, explained in the Chinese press that the anabolic agent clenbuterol found in his system had come from tainted meat at a grill party.
“There was no firm evidence of this. At his hearing, the committee were not convinced by his defence”, said Zhao Jian.
Luo tested positive for a banned diuretic. In both cases, the men’s coaches also got statutory life bans.
Around 4,500 tests will be carried out during the Beijing Olympics on the roughly 10,500 athletes taking part.
A total of 3,600 tests were performed in Athens in 2004.
Eight Olympic medallists tested positive - in two cases it was not the athlete but the horse he rode that had received the illegal substances.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 31.7.2008
More on this subject:
 Online sales of growth hormone flourishing in China
Links:
China Anti-Doping Agency
New York Times, 3.7.2008: Another Chinese Athlete Is Barred for Life After Drug Test
SAMI SILLANPÄÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
sami.sillanpaa@hs.fi
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