Observer calls for minimum penalties for drug abusers

JAKARTA (JP): A noted sports observer threw his weight yesterday behind the National Sports Council's appeal for minimum punishments against six athletes who failed dope tests in the recent National Games.

The observer, Mangombar Ferdinand Siregar, who is also the council's former secretary-general, told a press conference yesterday the respective sports organizations that the athletes are affiliated with should think wisely before imposing sentences on them.

"The organizations have to find out the real problem and who is to blame," Siregar said.

Traces of stimulants were detected in six out of 1,126 athletes' urine samples. Those who failed the dope tests were former national men's singles No. 1 tennis player Benny Wijaya, women's shooter Titiek Sumarni and men's judoka Dwi Sihmanto, all from Jakarta. The other three were men's shooter Lt. Col. Siswanto from Irian Jaya, women's shooter Inca Ferry of Yogyakarta and women's hockey player Fatimous Munaidah from East Java.

The Sports Council Chairman Wismoyo Arismunandar said upon revealing the athletes' names that they unintentionally took the drugs.

"The main problem of these cases is merely the lack of information about doping among athletes, officials, coaches and even doctors," Siregar said.

Siregar, who is a top official with the Jakarta tennis governing body, cited Inca as an example of someone with a lack of doping information. "I saw Inca interviewed by RCTI and I believed that she knew nothing about the substances," he said.

Siregar said the guilty athletes, who have had their medals withdrawn, would serve the hardest part of their sentences in the public eye. "They could be disgraced by the media coverage," he said.

He hailed the policy adopted by the Yogyakarta sports body in not canceling Inca's cash bonus, despite her doping case.

Doctors

Separately, Dr. Dangsina Moeloek, the official in charge of doping tests in the previous National Games three years ago, said yesterday that doctors who supplied the athletes with wrong drugs could be punished.

"This is what the International Olympics Committee regulations say about cases of doping," Dangsina said.

Some of the six athletes received the drugs from doctors who apparently were not familiar with the banned substances.

Dangsina also said Yogyakarta's female shooter Inca should have passed her dope test because she took medicine for her flu, which did not contain banned substances according to the guideline issued by the Games organizing committee.

"She took medicine containing fenflouramine, which is listed as an illegal substance only by the International Olympic Committee," Dangsina said, adding that the Yogyakartan could file a lawsuit against the Games committee for the administrative blunder.

Meanwhile, deputy of the Indonesian Medical Association, Yusuf Dzubaiti, told The Jakarta Post the association is not considering taking punitive measures against its members who were involved in the doping row because it has yet to set up regulations dealing with doping cases.

"It's quite new in the country and not all doctors, athletes and officials know about it," he said.

"The main problem is the information has not been delivered to all parties," he added.

Yusuf said the council, the association and sports doctors must talk about doping together. (yan)