SYDNEY, Oct 18: Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones’s admission she used performance enhancing drugs was ‘soul destroying’ but there were good signs the Beijing Olympics would be clean, the incoming world anti-doping chief said on Thursday.

John Fahey, the Australian who takes over in January as head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said he would strive to reach a goal of zero drugs, saying sport would not survive unless it was about fair play.

Drug-taking by top sportsmen and women disgusted him, he said.

“It disappoints me first and it disgusts me when I stop and think about it, and that includes of course Marion Jones,” he told Australian radio.

“I watched her magnificent feats at the Sydney Olympics and it is just soul destroying to look back now seven years later and say she didn’t do that based upon her own medical prowess.”

Jones, the golden girl of the Sydney Olympics, has handed back the three gold and two bronze medals she won after admitting in a US court to using performance-enhancing drugs.

Fahey said progress had been made since the agency was set up seven years ago.—AFP