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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, November 22, 2001

Expert: Beijing Fully Eligible for Doping Tests at 2008 Olympics

China will be fully capable of conducting doping tests at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, said a senior sports medical official Wednesday in Guangzhou, "What we need is just to install more equipment, have a bigger staff and expand the working space".


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China will be fully capable of conducting doping tests at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, said a senior sports medical official Wednesday in Guangzhou.

"We have been technically eligible for anti-doping task at the Olympic Games," said Zhang Changjiu, chief of the medical research institute of China's State Sports General Administration.

"What we need is just to install more equipment, have a bigger staff and expand the working space," said Zhang.

In events hosted by China, doping tests have been conducted by the Beijing-based Chinese Anti-doping Testing Center, which is recognized by the ISO Guide 25 and ranks among one of the laboratories accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Last year the testing center passed the IOC's annual accreditation review for the twelfth straight time, implying that Beijing is able to carry out the doping control on its own at the Olympic Games.

Beijing is yet to build a lab for doping tests of horse racing but Zhang said that they are technically eligible to do that.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club is undertaking the anti-doping tests on racing horses at China's ongoing 9th National Games and it is the first time in the country's national sports meet that racing horses are sampled for performance-enhancing drugs.

"But since we play host to the games, we will follow the rules of the IOC," said Zhang.

China Shores Up Efforts in Combating Doping
China has shown no mercy in getting rid of doping offenses as more sophisticated means and state-of-art facilities are put in place to detect the use of banned drugs in the ongoing ninth national games.

The blood test, which aims to scrutinize the use of performance-enchancing EPO, has been adopted for the first time for the national games, which is second to Olympics in status for the Chinese athletes.

China have widely implemented the tests in domestic competitions, including the 1999 national youth games or City Games, another high-level games sponsored by China's State Sports General Administration.

EPO, or erythropoietin, boosts the production of oxygen-rich red blood cells and is believed to be able to improve athletes' performance by 10-15 percent.

The organizers of the ninth national games have disqualified four athletes after the blood test found their red blood cells were above the permitted level.

Meanwhile, the organizers increase the number of athletes to betested, as a total of 1,297 tests will be done throughout the current national games, which represents an 87 percent increase over the last games in Shanghai four year ago.

In addition, the post-competition sampling is backed up by out-of-competition tests during the ninth national games, which the IOC has not practiced.

"For instance, between the preliminary round and final round ofthe games, athletes will be sampled for test," said Wang Xuezhi, an official with the anti-doping department of the organizing committee.

All the samples will be air-lifted to the Beijing-based China Anti-doping Testing Center, which is recognized by the ISO Guide 25 and ranks among one of the laboratories accredited by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Once sample A of athletes tests positive, reporters will be informed promptly and athletes disqualified or punished right away.

This is a tougher measure than usual practice, according to Zhang Changjiu, anti-doping chief of the organizing committee, as doping controllers generally test both A and B samples before finally determining if the athlete fails the doping test.

"What we do at the national games is a little different, because we don't want to give possible violators any chance," said Zhang.

A supervisory panel was also set up to monitor the doping control, the first time in the history of the quadrennial games, and a group of specialists have been involved in every step of thedoping-control program, added Zhang.

"The doping control demands serious attention to every detail, so specialists are available at every anti-doping step whatsoever," said Zhang.

China Has More Sophisticated Means to Fight Doping
China rose one notch in its fight against doping as they have been able to conduct both blood and urine tests for the banned performance-enhancing drug EPO.

EPO, or erythropoietin, boosts the production of oxygen-rich red blood cells and is believed to be able to improve athletes' performance by 10-15 percent.

The drug, which experts believe is one of the most-widely used drugs, is hard to be detected for it is also produced naturally inthe body.

A French laboratory has developed an anti-EPO test which can differentiate between natural and artificial EPO in urine while Australian scientists worked out a blood test that can detects changes in the blood caused by the use of EPO.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) adopted a joint bloodand urine test for the EPO at the Sydney Games last year, and willstick with a combined blood and urine EPO test in the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

In a recent meeting with scientific experts to review the test for artificial EPO, the IOC said that it will be more reliable to combine the blood test and urine test.

China has been fully capable of conducting the blood test on athletes after taking part in an international research program ondetecting EPO.

"And we can also carry out anti-EPO urine tests," Zhang Changjiu, chief of the medical research institute of China's StateSports General Administration, told Xinhua here on Wednesday.

But only anti-EPO blood test is implemented for the ninth national games, said Zhang, who is also anti-doping chief of the organizing committee.

"We would not use the urine test until we completely master thetechnology," said Zhang.

And at the current national games, the blood test, which measures the level of red blood cells, is mainly used as health checks.

Those athletes tested above the permitted level will be asked to quit the games for the sake of their health, said Zhang.

At the ongoing national games, four athletes have quit the games upon the announcements that their blood tests returned abnormal results.




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