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| December 20, 2002 | Friday | Shawwal 15, 1423 |
Random drug tests to be introduced from Jan 2003
MELBOURNE, Dec 19: Random drug testing is to be introduced at next month’s Australian Open for the banned endurance-enhancing substance EPO, organisers said on Thursday.
Male and female professionals are already tested for recreational drugs and steroids, but some players believe the use of EPO has become prevalent.
Players will be officially informed of the tests at a meeting here on Jan 11, two days before the start of the first grand slam event of the year, Australian Open chief executive Paul McNamee said on Thursday.
Penalties for positive tests are a two-year suspension for a first offence and a lifetime ban for a second.
Players first learned of moves to target EPO - or erythropoieten, which boosts the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood - this year at Wimbledon.
French Davis Cup winner Nicolas Escude was quoted during this year’s French Open as saying: “To say that tennis today is clean you have to be living in a dream world.
French tennis federation president Christian Bimes last June called for blood tests to be introduced from the 2003 season in Grand Slam events in a bid to step up the fight against performance-enhancing drugs.
In the past two years, Argentine players Juan Ignacio Chela and Guillermo Coria have both tested positive from urine tests for banned substances. Chela was suspended for three months, Coria for seven.
Petr Korda, who won the 1998 Australian Open, tested positive for the steroid nandrolone at Wimbledon later that year. He was banned for a year.
Last July, Australia’s chief drug-tester said performance-enhancing substances were rife in women’s international tennis.
Australian Sports Drug Agency (ASDA) chief executive John Mendoza said tennis authorities were living in a “fool’s paradise” if they did not recognise the problem.
World number seven Lindsay Davenport last October called for more drugs tests in tennis before the problem got out of hand.
Governing bodies the WTA and ATP, plus the ITF — which oversees the four Grand Slam tournaments, the Davis Cup and Fed Cup — say they did 1,400 drug tests this year, almost 50 percent more than 2001.
Meanwhile Australian Open chief executive Paul McNamee was putting on a brave face on Thursday over the loss of marquee players Pete Sampras and Amelie Mauresmo.
Sampras, the most successful tennis player of all time who won the Australian Open in 1994 and 1997, has decided to rationalize his playing schedule for 2003 following the birth of his first child last month.
Frenchwoman Mauresmo said on Wednesday she would be missing the Australian Open because of continued right knee problems.
“We still have all of the top 10 men and the top five women as well as 95 of the top 100 men,” McNamee said on Thursday.
Sampras said he would skip the Australian Open, which starts on January 13 but plans to compete in the final three major championships - the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open, which he won this year.
“I’m just going to see how it goes, just kind of ride the wave and see how far it takes me,” 31-year-old Sampras said.
“I understand that, week in and week out, I don’t have what I had when I was number one in the world.
“To do that, to stay there, it has to be your total life, you have to live and breathe it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still win the big ones.”
There were also doubts surrounding the appearance of men’s defending champion Thomas Johansson and British number one Tim Henman.
Johansson has been bothered by a knee injury for six months and says he has not trained since playing in last month’s Masters Cup in Shanghai.
Henman had recent arthroscopic surgery for a shoulder complaint.
Former winner Martina Hingis has notified organisers she won’t be playing, as has the 2001 men’s runner-up Frenchman Arnaud Clement.— Agencies
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