2012 Anti-doping Plans Worry Athletes
The British Athletes Commission is reportedly concerned at Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe’s plans for their rooms to be searched in order to crack down on doping issues during the 2012 Olympics.
Although the sports minister said he doesn’t want to ‘criminalise athletes’, he does want every competitor to sign a contract before the Games to let their rooms be searched for blood doping equipment.
The plan comes in the midst of Sutcliffe looking at different ways of increasing the powers of the drug enforcement agencies during the 2012 Games.
The chief executive of the British Athletes Commission, Pete Gardner, has said he is ‘very concerned at the proposals,’ according to media reports.
The room-search contract would enable anti-doping officials to take similar action during London 2012 as was taken during the Turin Winter Olympics in 2006, when police raided the lodgings of the Austrian biathlon team. A large number of doping products were seized.
Britain’s first dedicated anti-doping body (UKAD) is set to open in December will take on the responsibility for drug testing from UK Sport.
A confidential ‘drug cheat’ hotline is also planned for 2010, along with an athletes’ committee to liaise between UKAD and competitors.
