Olympics Boss Urges Global Drug Action

  AUSTRALIA'S Olympics chief has urged all sporting bodies to bring their anti-drugs codes up to world standard or risk not being able to participate in major events.

A SENATE committee heard evidence from Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates ahead of parliament debating and passing laws to strengthen the powers of the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA).
The laws will bring ASADA into line with the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA), which will introduce tougher penalties next year. WADA will double bans - from two to four years - for athletes using performance enhancing drugs. Athletes will also be banned from dealing with coaches, trainers and sports scientists who have broken anti-doping laws, and the period in which investigations can begin into past doping offences will be extended by two years, to 10 years. Mr Coates says Australia is lagging behind other countries and sports bodies, and parliament needs to step up the pace of reform. "The horse has bolted," he said.

The first major event which could be affected if soccer was not WADA code compliant was the AFC Asian Cup to be hosted by Australia in early 2015. Australia's preparations to put together an Olympic team for the Rio Games in 2016 could also be affected if the various national sports federations are not compliant with the world code by January 1. Any athlete involved in a sporting body that was not code compliant would not be accepted into the team, he said. "It's critical to deal with anti-doping in a consistent and harmonised way," Mr Coates said. "Our athletes want the same penalties applying across all the sports." The inquiry heard from former Carlton player and now AFL players association general manager, Ian Prendergast, who argued players wanted a clean sport but the new laws did not properly protect their interests and privacy, and imposed too-harsh penalties. He queried the "one-size fits all" approach being driven by Olympics-related bodies.