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2002 most dope-free Games?

By Lois M. Collins
Deseret News staff writer

      Salt Lake City just kicked off what promises to be the "most doping-free" Games in history, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.
      And the numbers back up the claim.
      In its pre-competition testing, which involved both winter and summer sports and athletes from 76 nations, fewer than one-half of 1 percent tested positive for a banned substance.
      Even then, some of the athletes had medical exemptions.
      Anti-doping agency Chairman Richard W. Pound announced Friday to a standing room-only crowd of international journalists that of 3,639 out-of-competition drug tests since April 1, 27 "positives" were found.
      Of those, six had medical waivers, one received a warning for not declaring he was using a medically justified but banned substance and 16 were sanctioned, usually with a two-year competition suspension. Four of the cases are still being decided.
      Out-of-competition testing can take place any time, anywhere. WADA has agreements with all of the sports federations to do the drug screening.
      And the anti-doping agency is not the only organization testing athletes. Each county has its own testing system.
      The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, for example, has done its own out-of-competition testing of American athletes, as well as some of the testing for WADA.
      USADA has not yet released any numbers, however.
      Pound said no one is certain exactly how many of the athletes competing in the 2002 Winter Games have undergone drug screens, but the majority have likely been tested at least once by one of the agencies.
      And they'll also face in-competition doping tests as the Games proceed, this time under the auspices of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, which took over the job Jan. 29.
      Included in the pre-Games testing were 193 EPO blood tests for winter sports as a lead-up to the Games. One came back positive for EPO (erythropoietin). Each endurance sport athlete will be tested again in Utah before competing, SLOC's anti-doping director, Dr. Doug Rollins, said last month.
      Eight of the sanctions were given in winter sports and eight in summer sports.
      A Russian skier had arrived for the Games but was told she could not participate, Pound said. Others had been left off the teams after testing positive.
      With the exception, that is, of Latvian bobsledder Sandis Prusis, whose case is a real sore spot for WADA. A Court of Arbitration panel overruled an IOC decision to bar him from the Games. He just completed a three-month suspension after testing positive for nandrolone. Pound said the sport federation would be asked to explain what happened and said if they "don't abide by the rules, we may have to excommunicate them" from being a federation for whom WADA does testing and adjudication.
      Athletes who test positive for banned substances "should be taken out of competition because they are wrecking it for other athletes," he said, decrying that penalties imposed by the various sports federations are not all the same. He hopes to see that change.

E-mail: lois@desnews.com