America set to hand over drug testing

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Sydney: US athletics authorities, under fire at the Sydney Olympics for their drug-testing procedures, appear set to hand over control of all their anti-doping efforts to WADA, the new world anti-doping agency.

US Track and Field chiefs said they had made the proposal on Thursday to WADA following a meeting on Tuesday between USATF chief Craig Masback and the agency's head, Dick Pound, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president.

"The USA Track and Field (USATF) on Thursday proposed to Dick Pound...that WADA assume control of USATF's doping-control programme," the national association said in a statement on Friday.

Masback added, "At my meeting with Dick Pound it was apparent to me that, in spite of our best efforts in the doping control area, Pound and others do not have total confidence in how we have handled doping matters."

He added, "We believe that WADA control of our anti-doping programme will ensure international confidence in the system."

Reacting to the proposal, Pound added, "We can do it. It might be a model for the future."

During the Sydney Games, IOC medical commission chief Alexandre de Merode accused the United States of covering up five doping cases before the 1988 Seoul Olympics and letting the athletes take part in the Games.

IOC medical commission member Arne Ljungvist had earlier claimed that US athletics chiefs had also failed to inform track and field's world governing body of 15 suspicious doping cases over the last two years.

WADA was set up last November to carry out testing around the world in the wake of major drug scandals in the last few years.

Pound said WADA would need to discuss the matter as soon as possible. He said he was not given the impression that WADA would have to pay for everything.

"I did not get the impression that the decision was budget-relieving," he said. "It a reaction to deal with recent events."

USATF has also proposed that a special commission be set up to review its compliance with anti-doping rules and international standards in the past two years.

Cover-up

Doping has been a major talking point at the Sydney Games. During the Olympics it was revealed that US shot putter C J Hunter, husband of double Olympic sprint champion Marion Jones, had tested positive four times during the season.

IOC athletes' commission member Johann Olav Koss, the former Norwegian Olympic speedskating champion, said athletes had the feeling that track and field authorities were covering up and had a special rule for American athletes.

Masback sent a letter to Pound on Thursday which was copied to Koss. The USATF chief wrote that he had struggled to find ways of improving the credibility of the drug-testing programme while working within US law.

"However, after serious reflection, I believe I have the solution," he wrote. "I propose that WADA take over the USATF's entire doping control programme.

"WADA would administer and conduct our in-competition and out-of-competition drug testing programmes and adjudicate all cases. WADA would deliver a final decision to USATF and our only role in the process would be to take the required disciplinary action."

Anita DeFrantz, the IOC's most senior member from the United States, said action needed to be taken quickly.

"The US athletes want to have their sport clean too," she said. "We're going to work on it. I know there is a solution. We don't want any aspersions cast on us.

"For the sake of the athletes, the athletes who in particular compete clean, I believe, we have to do something very, very quickly."



(c) Reuters Limited.