WADA ponders leniency for accidental dopers

TORONTO, Jan 17: Under pressure to soften its uncompromising enforcement of anti-doping rules, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) may introduce tougher penalties for hardcore abusers -- but leniency for others.

Chairman Richard Pound told Reuters yesterday that WADA had been taking a hard look at its code and was planning some ''fine tuning.'' However, information gathered by WADA's 'code project team' indicated athletes and sports bodies were keen to see significant changes, particularly to the penalties handed out to those facing minor infractions or who unknowingly take a banned substance.

The Anti-Doping code stipulates a mandatory minimum two-year ban for anyone caught doping.

''It's entirely fine tuning,'' Pound told Reuters in a telephone interview. ''The basic guts of the code and the standards are all maintained.

''Where there really is an accident, a cold medicine or somebody has smoked marijuana or something like that, where there is probably no intention to dope from the sport side of things but there is a technical violation, we want to have flexibility.

''You don't need to sit out two years for that.'' The possibility of WADA taking into account mitigating factors when an athlete produces a positive test would mark a dramatic departure from the organisation's long-held hardline position that athletes alone are liable for any banned substances in their body.

FLEXIBILITY

However, Pound conceded that handing the same two-year ban down to an athlete accidentally taking a banned drug and those deliberately using performance-enhancing substances was not appropriate. ''We want to have some flexibility going down but on the other hand where you're dealing with some hardcore cases, trafficking, deliberate use and systematic use you want to go beyond two years to four or whatever else may be appropriate,'' said Pound.

''There are lots of things we have found over the last three years where you say, maybe two years is not appropriate in this case and we need some flexibility to deal with these particular circumstances.'' WADA stakeholders will now review the revised code and will vote on the amendments at their annual meeting in Madrid in November.

''When we did this in 2003, did we think we got it 100 percent right, it's a miracle we got a code at all,'' said Pound. ''Now we've had three years of experience and we're finding things that wobble that we should tighten up.

''There's nobody who says we should throw this code out, it's nonsense.'' Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, who tested positive for the banned male hormone testosterone during last year's race and faces a possible two-year ban, said in a statement he welcomed suggestions of an overhaul to WADA's current approach.

Mislabelling and misidentification of the samples and the ''radically inconsistent'' testosterone-to-epistesterone ratio used by the testers are the cornerstones of Landis's defense.

''It is a positive change in WADA's approach to release to the public these criticisms and calls for rule revisions from organisations ranging from the United States Olympic Committee to a wide range of national sports federations,'' said Landis.

''It is also gratifying to me to know that the heaviest criticism was focused on the exact same test that has unfairly cast doubts on my performance in Stage 17 of the Tour de France.'' REUTERS