Use of drugs spreading to Chinese amateurs - official

BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) China now has a lower number of doping cases than the international average, but the use of banned substances is spreading from elite athletes to the general population, a Beijing Olympics official said today.

China was suspected of systematic doping when its athletes were at the centre of several big scandals in the 1990s, but a tough anti-doping law enacted in 2004 has reduced the possibility of embarrassment when the Olympic Games come to town next year.

''We have increased the number of tests and sharpened the punishments, which has been very effective in recent years,'' Yang Shuan, executive vice-president of the Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG), said at the opening of an exhibition showcasing 40 years of the fight against doping.

''The percentage of positive tests in China is now much lower than the international average.

''(But) doping cases in China are now spreading from professionals to amateurs, from competitive sports to social sports, from seniors to youth, from competitions to entrance examinations for schools,'' he added.

''That is why we need exhibitions like this to educate people about preventing the use of banned substances.'' Anti-doping officials unearthed 450 doses of the blood-boosting EPO (erythropoietin), the male sex hormone testosterone and steroids during a raid on a Liaoning athletics school's training camp last August.

Even though China is confident its athletes will be clean at next year's Beijing Olympics, Yang said he thought the 4,500 tests conducted during the Games would catch some cheats.

''All Olympic Games have some positive tests and we can't exclude the possibility that some athletes lacking sporting ethics will use forbidden substances,'' he said. ''We will have to give more and more powerful punishments and let all the people despise them.'' REUTERS AY BD1255