The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) is stepping up an ambitious program to combat doping in sports and stop the scourge from escalating in the region, a top official said yesterday.
Mani Jegathesan, chairman of the medical committee of the OCA, said Asian sports personalities continue to be caught for consuming banned performance-enhancing drugs.
“The fact remains that at any time we are doing [doping] tests, we come up with positive cases,” he said on the sidelines of an international sports congress.
“We accept now that doping in sports is part of the current sports landscape but we are putting in place the mechanism to contain the problem and eliminate it,” he said.
Without giving specific details, Jegathesan said that high on the action plan was imposing stiffer punishments on athletes who cheat, and conducting random testing during training and competition.
“We have to start off with punishment,” he said, adding that the authorities would deter drug taking by not only testing individuals but providing education on the dangers of consuming banned drugs.
Jegathesan added that the Olympic Council of Asia had forged a pact with the World Anti-Doping Agency to strengthen surveillance during the Asian Games.
“The chance to win big money and the rewards are push factors that attract athletics to take drugs. It is the part of a culture to win at any cost,” he said.
In Asia, sports with high incidents of doping include body-building, weightlifting and to some extent track and field.
“We recognise there is this gap between the cheaters and the catchers. We are doing everything to narrow the gap,” he said. “If we do not take action, this will provide incentive to cheaters to escalate the usage of drugs to boost their performance. Asia is not immune to doping.”
At the last Asian Games in Qatar, weightlifters and bodybuilders from Myanmar and Uzbekistan were among those testing positive, while a Vietnamese gymnast and a North Korean shooter failed dope tests at the Beijing Olympics.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
RSS