Yearender: Rigorous Anti-doping Drive Ensures China's Clean Olympic Journey

A rigorous anti-doping campaign in 2000 kept Chinese fair and clean in the Sydney Olympic Games, where a string of drug scandals spoiled its success.

In Sydney, more than 100 Chinese athletes, including medal winners and those fairly unknown, had their blood or urine samples tested. All the results turned negative.

In Sydney, some medal winners including Olympic champions in gymnastics and weightlifting had their medals stripped for failing doping tests.

And Cottrell Hunter, husband and coach of US athletics diva Marion Jones, had his Olympic credential annulled following four positive tests before the Games.

"We have reaped a double harvest in Sydney Games - one in sports and the other in sportsmanship," said Shi Kangcheng, a senior Chinese Olympic official who oversees the nation's anti-doping programs.

"The Chinese government takes the issue of doping in sports very seriously," he said. "The tests and punishments for any positive results in China are sometimes more rigorous than those set by the International Olympic Committee and the scale of doping tests in our country is one of the largest in the world," he said.

Only 13 tests turned positive in China in 2000, Shi told Xinhua.

"Up to now we have carried out 3,020 urine tests this year, including 1,698 out-of-competition tests without prior notice to the athletes concerned, which accounted for about 56 percent of the total number of tests done. There were only 13 positive cases," Shi said.

To prevent abuse of EPO, or erythropoietin, a substance that stimulates the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells in human's body, China began in 1998 conducting pre-competition blood tests in seven endurance sports and 343 blood tests have been

carried out on Chinese athletes so far in 2000.

China's sporting image had suffered a tremendous damage in the past years. Among the positive cases were those from the swimmers.Seven of its swimmers tested positive for steroid at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima. Four years later, another four swimmers failed doping tests during the world championships in Perth, Australia.

To restore its reputation in sports, China launched a vigorous anti-doping campaign with more intensive drug testing and harsher penalties for any doping cheats. These efforts have begun to pay off.

"Positive doping rates have fallen from about 1.6 percent in the early 1990s to about 0.5 percent at present - much lower than the international level during the same period," Shi said.

The IOC statistics showed the positive rate in the world in 1998 was about 1.8 percent.

Shi, also director of the Science and Education Department of the Chinese Sports General Administration (CSGA), said China had stepped up education drive on the harm of doping and was trying to cultivate the concept that to be fair and clean is all the more important than victory.

On the other hand, in addition to enforcing IOC-set sanctions on positive doping cases, China also levies heavy fines on offenders.

To curb the greed which pushes swimmers and coaches to turn to performance-enhancing drugs, the Chinese Swimming Association (CSA) has also instituted rules to withhold 80 percent of prize money for medal winners for four years. Any one test positive during that period would have the money forfeited.

"The anti-doping rules we've instituted are more severe than those by the Chinese Olympic Committee (COC) and the International Olympic Committee," said Zhang Qiuping, a senior CSA official.

China demonstrated it's resolve to weep out doping from sports when the CSA announced its decision to ban world champion swimmer Wu Yanyan for four years after she failed a domestic drug test and COC decided to slim its Olympic squad by erasing those who turned suspicious results of domestic blood tests prior to the Sydney Games, even though the move might have hurt China's gold-medal hope in Sydney.

"Chinese swimming was once greatly damaged by doping, and now we are determined to eradicate the cancer," said Shi Tianshu, director of the Chinese Swimming Sports Administrative Center.

The international sports world has highly praised the measures taken by the COC. IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said in Sydney that China had set a good example of fair competition for other participating countries.

Michael Knight, the top organizer for the Sydney Games also praised China's efforts to clamp down on doping.

"I was really impressed with China's anti-doping efforts at the national level," he said before the Olympic Games.

Since it was founded in 1989, the China Doping Control Center in Beijing has acquired the IOC accreditation for 12 straight years and is ranked as a Class A laboratory in the world. This was a great boost for China as earlier this month, 11 other international labs were found not up to the IOC criteria.






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