Doping Most Serious Threat For Olympics

Doping is the most serious threat to next year’s London 2012 Olympic Games – according to the minister of Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson.

Robertson said: ‘Remember that 80 percent of unsecured income that the London organising committee needs to raise is secured against ticketing’.

‘If people buying these tickets cease to believe that what they are paying quite large sums of money for is anything other than a fair contest then the integrity of the Games will be lost. It’s as simple and complicated as that’.

This comes just days after World Anti-Doping Association director general David Howman reportedly stated that the criminal underworld controlled a substantial part of world sport, and that the trafficking of prohibited performance-enhancing drugs was more lucrative than heroin.

Robertson added: ‘I think that the lesson I took from my conversation [with Howman] was it’s a very serious threat and it’s big business for criminal bodies’.

Speaking at an anti-doping conference at Twickenham rugby stadium, Richard Budgett, the chief medical officer for the Games, explained that every measure possible would be taken against doping.

According to media reports, 5,000 dope tests will be conducted, compared to the 4,500 at the 2008 Beijing Games and the number of tests would reach a daily peak of 400.

A confidential 24-hour hotline has also been introduced, that will allow athletes to pass on any information they may have about doping in sport.