UK Olympics will be without drugs
Rogge Jacques Rogge president of the IOC has confessed that he expects a few athletes to make use of performance enhancing substances during the London, UK Olympics. A number of measures have been put in place to catch athletes trying to cheat during the games. Athletes will now do more drugs tests – ten percent increase compared with 4 years back in Beijing and these tests will be conducted in modern laboratories.
“In all the Olympic games, some positive cases have been reported since the IOC began testing,” Rogge told reporters.
“Saying no positive cases will be reported would be inexperienced and deceptive. I hope there would be no positive results, however from reality perspective, I know positive cases may be recorded.
Rogge further stated: “We have taken all possible measures to ensure that doping will be at its minimum in London. We are expecting that the numbers will be very low and we have put in place adequate measures to protect athletes that are clean.
The president of the IOC has recently suffered frustration in the current battle against athletes, guilty of using performance enhancing drugs.
LaShawn Merrit Beijing Olympic champion, who was found to have doped in 2009 was later given a 2 years ban from athletics. However, in October, he won an appeal against the IOC, which was trying to stop him from participating in the London, UK 2012.
The court ruled that stopping LaShawn Merrit from taking part in the London Olympics was beyond IOC’s restrictions of a maximum 2 year ban. According to the court, it would basically amount to a second sentence for a single wrongdoing.
“It has been our intention to make the Olympics a very clean event and that’s why we are so disappointed,” Rogge reflected. However, as you are aware that court was set up by us and so we must follow the decisions of the court.
Next month British Olympic Association have their hearing with the court when their present bylaw, which outlaws cheats like David Millar and Dwain Chambers from Olympic events for life, is going to be challenged.
In a recent poll, about ninety percent of British athletes indicated that they would like individuals that had been caught cheating to stay banned for ever.
“This judgment was given by jury and by lawyers and it has to be respected,” Rogge informed reporters.” We have no other option. It is not a matter of whether it is good or bad. We have the same position as the athletes and that’s quite comforting, however everything is governed by law.”
Rogge made these statements during the Innsbruck Winter Youth Olympics, also attended by Andy Hunt BOA chief executive.
Giving his own remarks regarding the case, Hunt was of the opinion that BOA has a good chance to succeed, even though it would not matter much if they were not successful.
Hunt was quoted as saying that they have made their stance against using performance enhancing substances. No matter the end result of our activities so far in supporting clean sport, I am actually proud.”
Paula Radcliffe the record holder for women’s world marathon used her twitter page to support Rogge’s remarks. She wrote: “Completely in agreement with Jaques Rogge’s perception of cheats and dopers. There will never be excuses and it will never be ok.”