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| May 26, 2005 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 17, 1426 |
IAAF wants world events cleanest ever
HELSINKI, May 25: The International Association of Athletics Federation intends to make this year’s World Championships the cleanest ever, with every effort made to uncover doping, the head of the IAAF anti-doping committee said on Wednesday.
“Testing will be increased before and during the competition and we will focus our efforts on education and information because we think that is a fundamental goal,” Juan Manuel Alonso told AFP.
“The goal is to make these championships the cleanest” in history, he said.
Helsinki will host the event Aug 6-14.
With just over two months to go, Alonso and officials from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) visited the Finnish capital on Wednesday to assess the local organising committee’s preparations.
The Finnish athletics federation and the Finnish anti-doping agency FINADA, together with WADA and the IAAF, have “the most ambitious anti-doping programme ever undertaken,” Alonso said after touring a laboratory where urine and blood samples will be analysed.
A hundred tests will be conducted in the month before the event. Some 500 urine samples will then be tested in the days before, during and after the competition, and at least 300 blood samples will be analysed to detect EPO (erythropoietin) doping and other forms of blood tampering.
Testing for blood tranfusions aimed at covering up growth hormone treatments or EPO was first done at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and will continue, Alonso said. The samples will be analysed in Lausanne.
Finland is particularly keen to demonstrate its determination to fight doping, four years after a scandal involving its cross-country ski team at the Lahti skiing world championships in 2001 left Finns hanging their heads in shame.
Six skiers tested positive for banned substances and an inquiry revealed that a number of officials from the national team and skiing federation were involved.
In Helsinki, a dozen WADA officials, a hundred or so from FINADA and a half-dozen from the IAAF will be called in to work at the world championships.
Several of them will focus solely on informing athletes and the public of anti-doping efforts.
“They will set up an information hub in the athletes’ restaurant to give them written information on doping, and provide them with computer stations where they can check the list of banned products and read the international regulations,” Alonso said.
A competition will also be organised where athletes can test their knowledge of the subject. After the championships, WADA officials will draft a report on the results of the anti-doping efforts.
In 2004, 2,998 drug tests were conducted in athletics (997 in competition, 2,001 outside of competition), of which 74, or 2.46 per cent, were positive.
Some 3,000 athletes from 200 countries are expected in Helsinki in August for the world championships.
More than four billion people are expected to watch the championships on television, or the equivalent of the audiences of 14 Formula One races and two Winter Olympics, according to organisers.—AFP
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