Drug scandals irk sports chiefs ahead of Asiad
Drug scandals irk sports chiefs ahead of Asiad
HONG KONG (Agencies): Drug scandals involving top Asian athletes have forced the continent's sports leaders to draw up emergency plans to counter the growing threat to next month's Asian Games.
Badminton world men's doubles champion Sigit Budiarto, and Susanthika Jayasinghe, silver medal winner in the women's 200m at the world track and field championships, have this week seen their part in the Bangkok Games canceled or put in doubt.
South Korea's women artistic gymnastics squad and a Japanese snooker player have also been withdrawn over doping failures.
"After China's problems this year there is a risk that this will become an epidemic. The Olympic Council of Asia must act," said a member of the council's executive.
"Within our resources we are going to tighten controls in Bangkok but time is running out."
Jayasinghe's case could also be decided this week by the International Amateur Athletic Federation.
A sample given in April by the 22-year-old Sri Lankan star sprinter showed traces of steroids. Her suspension was lifted in August with Jayasinghe claiming test irregularities, but the IAAF doping commission is fighting the decision to let her run again, according to documents released by Chinese athletics officials.
No country can now afford to take risks, and Indonesia, smarting from Sigit's dope case, has prompted out-of-competition tests on 33 of its 126 Asiad-bound athletes.
National Sports Council medical official Carmen Jahya said on Wednesday that only two sepak takraw, three taekwondo athletes and two lifters had been tested so far.
"We postponed conducting tests on the remaining athletes due to security concerns," Carmen said. Jakarta was hit by a wave of antigovernment rallies last week.
Women's badminton player Mia Audina and Olympic men's doubles gold medalists Ricky Subagja and Rexy Mainaky, national tennis queen Yayuk Basuki, male gymnast Jonathan Sianturi and world women's weightlifting champion Winarni are among the next targets of the tests which are expected to be completed on Nov. 25.
Asiad host Thailand has also carried out extensive tests on its competitors, Hong Kong's athletes have been warned against taking traditional Chinese medicines and Japanese competitors have been told a cup too many of strong Japanese green tea could put them over the limit.
Warning
The Chinese Olympic Committee (COC), which cannot afford another scandal since 11 of its athletes were caught out at the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, says it has redoubled warnings.
COC vice-chairman Li Furong said classes had been organized for coaches, doctors and officials in every sport to be contested by China, warning particularly against furosemide.
Li said special random tests may be carried out in sensitive sports such as swimming and cycling before athletes go to Bangkok. Every athlete will get a written warning.
Many officials have privately expressed concern about testing at the Asian Games where the budget has been cut to the limit.
But doping control experts will use new carbon isotope ratio drug testing which has cost the organizers US$2.5 million.
"I am quite sure that anyone involved who dopes will be detected, definitely, and they should be given a strong penalty whatever that will be," Bhichai Rattakul, deputy prime minister and chairman of the Bangkok Asian Games Organizing Committee (BAGOC) told AFP.
Many Asian Olympic leaders were at an antidoping conference in Dublin this month when a leading expert warned that sport's war on drugs would be lost unless blood testing was introduced by the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Professor David Cowan, head of the IOC-accredited laboratory in London, said drugs were being used by athletes who know they could not be detected in urine samples.
"By 2000, unless we are testing blood, we haven't got a chance," said Cowan, who helped set up the $8 million drug testing center at the Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games in September.