China attempts to clear image

Agence France-Presse, Beijing

China swears it is emerging from its drug cloud although two positive doping tests by swimmers this year has dented progress it has made to clean up its act.

World swimming body FINA said Ying Shan, a member of China's world record-setting 4x100m freestyle team from 1997, and her compatriot Jiawei Zhou both tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid clenbuterol in January.

And in the first major event since Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics, at least 10 athletes reportedly failed drug tests at China's National Games in November last year.

Despite the setbacks, China says it has been actively cracking down on drug cheats in recent years in a bid to clean up its image.

Blood tests for detecting the banned endurance-boosting drug EPO had been adopted for the first time at the National Games.

During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Chinese authorities prevented track coach Ma Junren and his athletes from participating due to suspicions about doping.

And at the World University Games in Beijing last year, mirrors were installed around toilets at doping control stations to ensure athletes did not tamper with urine tests.

China goes into the Asian Games in Busan starting Sept. 29 knowing that the sports world will be watching it closely.

Another doping scandal at a major event will be a major embarrassment with the countdown to the 2008 Olympics well underway.

Although China got through the Sydney Olympics without major dramas, 40 athletes and officials were axed from their squad after seven rowers failed drug tests in the lead up to those Games.

In the South Korean port city of Busan, their swimming team will come under closest scrutiny after years of dubious doping records, although China's track and field competitors, rowers and weightlifters also have a tainted history.

The country won four swimming gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and then took 12 of the 16 women's titles at the 1994 World Championships in Rome.

However, their next major competition saw them fall to earth with a thud. Improved testing methods at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima resulted in 11 Chinese athletes testing positive for the steroid dihydrotestosterone.

Seven swimmers were among them, and the squad was so decimated that China won only one swimming gold at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

The decline was only temporary and by 1998 China's women were rising back to the top -- until four more positive tests and the discovery of Human Growth Hormone in a leading swimmer's luggage before the world championships in Perth, Australia.

The scandals prompted Chinese sports officials to crack down on sports doping amongst coaches and athletes.

Speaking on the eve of the 2002 National Spring Swimming Championships in April, Li Hua, chairman of the Chinese Swimming Association, insisted progress was being made.

"We have experienced a recovering year of 2001 and made some brilliant results at the world events," he told state press.

"But we need to always have anti-doping in mind and stamp out the problem."

According to Li, about 900 urine tests were conducted last year by CSA and world swimming governing body FINA -- 529 outside of competition. Just three were found to be positive.

"It was a year to produce the strongest blow to the use of performance enhancing drugs in swimming in China. It showed our resolve to crack down the doping issue."