Canberra: Beijing Games will be ``cleanest’’
Olympics in years despite concerns about effectiveness
of tests for blood doping, said World Anti-Doping
Agency (WADA) president John Fahey.
Though he refused to guarantee a completely
drug-free Games, he said cheats were more likely
to be caught by the doping agency this year
than ever before. “One has to recognise
the question of doping in sport has been around
now for a long time,” Fahey told Australian
Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio.
“There’s been evidence that at successive
games it’s occurred. (But) I can give
this guarantee: there’s a far greater
likelihood that anybody cheating or attempting
to cheat in Beijing Games will be caught than
in any other time of our history.”
WADA was established in 1999 after the previous
year’s Tour de France was rocked by Festina
affair, which exposed systematic blood doping
within the sport.—Agency