Olympic officials will ask
Chinese police to take action against any suspected
drug-dealing or organized doping rings in the athletes'
village and other locations during the Beijing Games, IOC
president Jacques Rogge says.
Rogge told The Associated Press that the International
Olympic Committee will tip off Chinese authorities to
suspicious activity by athletes or coaches, just as it
alerted Italian police to blood doping by Austrian team
members during the 2006 Turin Winter Games.
"This is paramount," Rogge said. "We did not hesitate to call
in the police in Turin. We will do that when we suspect there
is a kind of drug-dealing ring. We cannot investigate
ourselves. We need the support of the state."
Italian police raided the lodgings of Austria's cross country
and biathlon teams during the Turin Games in February 2006,
seizing alleged doping substances and equipment. The search
was triggered by the presence of former Austrian coach Walter
Mayer, who was implicated in a blood-doping case at the 2002
Salt Lake City Games.
The IOC later imposed lifetime bans on four Austrian athletes
for possession of prohibited substances and taking part in a
doping conspiracy. The IOC also fined the Austrian Olympic
Committee US$1 million ($NZ1.31 million) for failing to
prevent the blood-doping violations.
Rogge said the IOC is prepared, based on sufficient evidence,
to ask Chinese authorities to conduct similar raids and
searches.
"If needed, they would provide the help that is possible," he
said. "We can only call the police, or the police can come
spontaneously, when we have suspicions."
Police action would be targeted only against cases of
organized and aggravated doping.
"This is for people who are selling doping products or have
major possession of doping products or are actively helping
other athletes to dope," Rogge said in a telephone interview
from Lausanne, Switzerland.
The IOC will be conducting more than 4,500 doping tests
during the Beijing Games, which includes out-of-competition
controls starting with the opening of the Olympic village on
July 27. The games themselves run from Aug. 8-24. The IOC
carried out about 3,600 tests during the 2004 Athens
Olympics.
Rogge said Beijing will have 739 blood tests, including 400
for human growth hormone. The HGH test - first introduced in
Athens - has been enhanced by 50 percent, but the window of
detection is still limited, he said.
"Nevertheless it has a major deterrent effect and it will
hopefully catch the cheats if they take it," Rogge said,
adding the HGH tests will be carried out during
pre-competition periods rather than in-competition.
Athletes can be subjected to surprise, no-notice tests
wherever they are in the world, including at training sites,
before they arrive in Beijing.
Rogge said the IOC will target any suspicious athletes, just
as it did when it went after Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris
and Katerina Thanou on the eve of the Athens Olympics.
The runners failed to show up for tests in the Olympic
village and then claimed they were injured in a motorcycle
accident. The two were pulled out of the games and later
banned for two years.
"Athletes know that we mean business," Rogge said. "Athletes
know that we are going to chase them if we don't have their
whereabouts. ... Hiding places are becoming more and more
difficult to find."
