China

WADA chief urges more doping tests in China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-10-11 14:06
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Despite the high quality of China's equipment, research and scientists, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)president Richard W. Pound that China still needs to do more doping tests.

"It is an imbalance which is really not commensurate with a really effective anti-doping programme." said Pound, who compared China's 7,000 tests per year with Australia's 8,000.

"I don't think the number of tests performed bears any relationship to the size of the sporting population in China."

Pound, who visited China Doping Control Center and held talks with Beijing Olympics Anti-Doping officials during October 9-11, added China has made a lot of progress since the very start.

"China had built a sound framework to tackle doping in sport and it is nice to see the progress is going up.

"But there is still a long way to go because it is a big and complicated country. China has to make everything work.

"They must find where the cheating is taking place and find a way to stop it, partly through education and partly through strict tests."

In August, the State Administration of Sport, China's sports governing body, announced that a Northeastern Chinese sports school has been discovered collectively to use performance-enhancing drugs in a doping raid. Coaches were found to give banned substances to athletes as young as 15.

"I hope the doping control applied here for the Games is staying strongly. I hope the athletes (to the Beijing Games) are preparing in the right way. If they come here to cheat they will get caught."

WADA, which was created in 1999 as the partnership between sports and government, assisted the development and enaction of an international convention with United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The convention means the governments of 191 countries and regions including China have agreed to make the World Anti-Doping Code the basis of their fight against doping.

"The most dangerous problem that sports have to face is the enhancing substances. We must catch up the drugs and the people to promote the medicine.

"If we did not control doping in sport, sport will become a gladiatorial contest that is performed by a group of chemical monsters. It is violent and meaningless."