BEIJING, Nov 12: China opened a new anti-doping agency on Monday which officials said would strive to be the world’s best for the 2008 Olympics. The China Anti-Doping Agency (CADA) formally started work at a new anti-doping laboratory in northern Beijing. The lab will test some 4,500 samples from athletes at next year’s Olympics, under the supervision of the World Anti-Doping Agency and the IOC, officials said.

“Anti-doping is not a business just for sport circles. It needs coordination of all government departments and the involvement of the whole of society to build and construct a prevention and punishment mechanism,” CADA Director Du Lijun told a news conference.

The laboratory will hire more than 20 foreign experts and skilful local volunteers to form a 150-strong anti-doping team during the Games, Du said.

It will also test some 40,000 Chinese athletes and also athletes from Hong Kong, Macau, and neighbouring countries such as Vietnam, Du added.

“It is the biggest laboratory with the world’s most advanced equipment. We are going to make it the world’s best,” Du said.

Chinese officials have been at great pains to assure the world its doping problems are a thing of the past after several scandals revealed systematic doping in the 1990s, but they concede that it has become a problem at the grass-roots level.

In September, United States officials said the majority of drugs and raw materials seized in a nearly two-year probe into global trafficking of steroids were sourced from China.

Two Chinese athletes last week failed doping tests at the 6th Chinese City Games, a domestic event.

The International Triathlon Union last month banned China’s top female triathlete and Asian Games champion, Wang Hongni, for two years for failing an out-of-competition doping test.—Reuters