Olympics-UK must criminalise doping

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-07-24 18:43

LONDON - The British government has again been warned to take a ruthless stance against doping by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Earlier this year a cross-party committee accused the government and UK Sport of "complacency" in putting into place rigorous measures to catch drugs cheats and ensuring the 2012 London Olympics is clean.

Professor Arne Ljungqvist, the chairman of the medical commission of the IOC, underlined the importance of ensuring London 2012 is clean and called on the government to make doping in sport a criminal offence.

"Doping is unacceptable, a social crime," he said in Tuesday's Times newspaper. "A coming host of an Olympic Games should show a good example here."

Ljungqvist pressed the government last year to follow the stance of other European countries like Italy where doping in sport is treated as a criminal offence.

The British Olympic Association (BOA) began an anti-doping commission in London on Tuesday, with tougher legislation high on the agenda.

UK Sport, the goverment agency in charge of performance sport and the country's doping controls, said it was taking steps to bolster its approach to cracking down on cheats.

"We have had discussion with the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Home Office to look at what legislation is in place," a spokesman said on Tuesday.

"We've also dealt with WADA and hosted a symposium on doping in April. We are looking to get the right mixture between criminalisation and what can be done within sport.

"The more powers we have to get under the skin of doping the better. Cases like BALCO highlight what we are up against and we are always looking at ways to strength our response."

The report in February by the Science and Technology Committee, entitled Human Enhancement Technologies in Sport, issued a raft of recommendations including four-year bans for those who fail drugs tests and setting up an independent agency to deal with doping cases in the United Kingdom.

Former British sports minister Richard Caborn fell foul of the World Anti-Doping Agency last year with a call to remove recreational drugs such as cannabis and cocaine from WADA's list of banned substances.