SPORTS> About Doha
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SPORTS> About Doha
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Drugs in forefront of Doha with Olympics less than 2 years away
(AP)
Updated: 2006-11-28 13:38 At the 1998 world championships in Perth, Australia, a Chinese swimmer and her coach were caught trying to bring human growth hormone into Australia and four other swimmers tested positive for drug use.
India's weightlifting team was suspended from international competition in the wake of several positive doping tests, including at this year's Commonwealth Games. India would have been allowed to compete if it paid a fine of US$50,000 (euro39,000), but the national weightlifting body decided to skip Doha. Pakistan's medal hopes in boxing were hit by a doping scandal involving Mehrullah Lassi and Faisal Karim, who tested positive for using cannabis at the South Asian Games last year. China will have a relatively inexperienced team at Doha, which has led to the inevitable suggestions that the 2008 hosts, fearful of a doping scandal so close to the Beijing Games, are shielding many of their top athletes. Nearly 64 percent _ 413 of the 647 athletes _ on the Chinese roster will be participating in their first major international games, Chinese officials say. China has increased its drug-testing measures, but WADA head Dick Pound said recently that the country wasn't doing enough _ China tests about 7,000 athletes a year compared with 8,000 by much smaller Australia. "They've got to increase the number of their tests," Pound said. More recently, athletes from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal tested positive for banned substances at the South Asian Games in August. In February, 17 doping officers from Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Taiwan, Iran and Japan gathered in Doha to come up with an action plan to get a jump start on cheating athletes at the Asian Games. Abdulwahab Almusleh, the games doping control manager in Doha, said historically, doping control programs were concerned only with taking the athlete's sample and monitoring for the presence of prohibited substances. But the drug cheat chasers now have to monitor test refusals, tampering of samples, attempted doping cases and identify when or how some athletes were involved in trafficking of prohibited substances. "We want to contribute to a fair, equal and healthy competition for all athletes in the games," Almusleh said.
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