Zero-tolerance on drugs cheats still our aim: IOC

The aim of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is still to have a zero-tolerance approach on athletes who have been found guilty of using illegal performance-enhancing products. The IOC has recently been rebuffed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) over its stance on doping cheats.

CAS notably cleared American 400m runner LaShawn Merritt and British sprinter Dwain Chambers to run in next month's London Games after deciding that their rule from its Olympic charter in 2008 banning athletes suspended for doping for six months or more from competing at the Olympics was "invalid and unenforceable".

"We're having some difficulties with the CAS," admitted Norwegian Gerhard Heiberg, an IOC executive board member who headed up the organising committee for the Lillehammer Winter Olympics in 1994.

"We wanted to have a statement saying that anybody caught in a doping offence should be left out of the Olympic Games in the future. We lost that battle in the CAS.

"But we are coming back and we want zero tolerance for doping, corruption and illegal betting.

"We're fighting for that and feel we have a responsibility towards international sports everywhere and we have to be in the front for this." Heiberg said the IOC is working with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to make missing the Olympics a formidable deterrent. "Athletes, coaches, trainers and doctors, everybody should all know that if you are caught, you may not take part in the Olympic Games in the future," he added.

"This is still our thought and this what we would like to see happening. We're working closely with WADA on this and hopefully, this will be what we can achieve for the future but we're not there yet."

The IOC got a boost from WADA last week with news that the next world anti-doping code, scheduled for 2015, will bid to prevent doping cheats from competing at the Olympics following the end of their suspension.

The 2015 world anti-doping code will seek to legalise a ban by implementing a "Limitation on Participation in the Olympic Games", a first draft of the code revealed on Friday.

According to the provisional code, "where an athlete or other person has been sanctioned for an anti-doping rule violation ... as an additional sanction, the athlete or other person shall be ineligible to participate in the next Summer Olympic Games and the next Winter Olympic Games taking place after the end of the period of ineligibility otherwise imposed".

An Olympic ban could also be imposed on athletes deemed to have committed an anti-doping rule violation such as filing failures, missed tests, and prohibited association.

The revision of the code follows a long period of talks which will likely come to a head at the fourth world conference on doping in sport, scheduled for November 13-15, 2013, in Johannesburg.

Any such move would doubtless be welcomed by world 400m hurdles champion Dai Greene of Britain, an outspoken critic of doping cheats being allowed to compete.

Greene has taken particular aim at Merritt, who was was banned for 21 months in October 2010 after testing positive for the anabolic steroid DHEA in three tests between October 2009 and January 2010.

But after his CAS clearance, the American 400m Olympic champion will likely be a direct rival of Greene's in the 4x400m relay in London, something that grates badly with the Welshman.

"As an athlete, you train really hard every day and when someone takes performance-enchaning drugs, that detracts from your efforts and they take financial gain from it as well, getting places in the final not just on the podium," Greene said. AFP