IOC: Anti-doping will help China

BANGKOK, Thailand — Efforts by China to fight steroid use should help the country’s bid to play host to the 2008 Olympics, IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch said Monday.

While taking pains to avoid signs of favoring any candidacy, Samaranch said doping scandals involving Chinese athletes should now take a back seat to recent anti-drug crackdowns directed by Beijing sport officials.

“I will say that maybe China is today one of the countries fighting with all their strength against doping and that is quite important to us,” Samaranch said. “We think the fight against doping in China is a real example.”

China announced this year that it would impose lifetime bans on athletes testing positive for strength-building steroids. The program came after six members of the Chinese team at the world swimming championships in Perth were expelled from Australia after banned drugs were found.

It was the latest in a string of doping scandals involving Chinese athletes, the worst during the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan, when 11 tested positive for steroids. Seven of those were swimmers, and the tests came after the women’s swim team sparked drug rumors with its dominance in the world championships in Rome.

Beijing narrowly lost to Sydney, Australia, as host city of the 2000 Games, with China’s human rights record a factor in the vote. The Chinese capital entered the race for 2008 last week but a formal bid won’t come until next month.

“Beijing bid for 2000 and I think that gave them good experience for how to bid again,” Samaranch said. “Maybe it was a good lesson.”

Toronto and Osaka, Japan, are bidding for 2008 and may be joined by Istanbul, Seville and Buenos Aires. Samaranch, at a news conference at the Asian Games, also mentioned Cairo and Kuala Lumpur as possible contenders.

A Chinese bid would have an impact on both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. China would be a major challenger to Toronto, considered the 2008 front-runner, and that would be welcomed by the United States, which is planning a bid for 2012. The United States would have little chance of persuading the IOC to take the games to North America twice running.

“There is nothing in the rules about where the games must go,” Samaranch said. “As president of the IOC, if there are seven, eight or nine candidates, they all have the same value to me.”

National Olympic committees have until February 2000 to officially bid for the 2008 Summer Games. The IOC decision will be made in 2001.

Associated Press