China says no to doping

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In less troubled times, the eve of the world track and field championships would have been all about the return of Usain Bolt and his sport to the Bird’s Nest.

Seven years after the Beijing Olympics, where Bolt became a global star, the avant-garde stadium that was the Games’ centerpiece remains quite a sight and quite a magnet. It draws tourists daily, and on Friday some volunteers and officials took turns gawking and sprinting on the track in their street clothes. A few posed for photographs on the finish line in Lane 4 — in which Bolt broke the world record in the 100 meters on his way to three gold medals in 2008. But the talk entering the meet has hardly been about mere races.

“All I’ve been hearing is just doping, doping, doping,” Bolt lamented at a news conference.

The doping drumbeat is hardly new in track and field, but it is back to deafening levels amid recent allegations of widespread doping by Russian and Kenyan athletes and reports of suspicious blood values recorded by many leading athletes in endurance events in the 2000s.

An anti-doping official told Xinhua that he was pleased to know that no Chinese athletes are mentioned in the current allegations over widespread doping in athletics, at least for now.

"For what it's worth, this can prove to some extent that our efforts paid off," said the Chinese official who has worked in the anti-doping field for more than a decade.

"From the government level, zero tolerance to doping is not just a slogan," the official said.

The official recalled the time ahead of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when China cut legendary coach Ma Junren and six of his runners out of the Chinese Olympic team due to "suspicious results of blood tests".

In track and field terms, China has hardly taken its first Olympic opportunity and run with it. Liu Xiang, the nation’s popular hurdler, injured an Achilles’ tendon in a heat in 2008 and never got to run for gold in Beijing. 

It is a tough job to reject the temptation of gold medal but China has managed to do it and put anti-doping efforts first.

China now owns one of the top anti-doping labs in the world and conducts more than 10,000 doping tests each year.

When World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president Craig Reedie visited Beijing lab on 19th, he called China Anti-Doping Agency (CHINADA) "one of the best".

"I had very interesting meetings with CHINADA, one of the best anti-doping organization in the world," said Reedie.

"We cooperate with CHINADA almost on a daily basis and this goes all the time," he said. "Both WADA and CHINADA are interested in clean sport and protecting the athletes, so we work together, as I said, almost everyday to achieve that."

What impressed Reedie most is the outreach program CHINADA set up in the three hotels where athletes stay.

"They are running their outreach program in the hotels which is designed to educate the young track and field athletes that clean sport is important and we should protect clean athletes," he said.

"Normally in major events there is one village, so you can concentrate your outreach program in one place now there are three outreach programs. I am very grateful for what they are doing," he added.

Outreach program is one of CHINADA's focus in their anti-doping drive as they has trained a group of lecturers who travel around the country to give anti-doping lectures to sports teams and school students.

There is also the coordinated efforts of multiple governmental departments to crack down on doping in a larger scope, which worked well for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and are still in place.

Reedie said he was happy to see that Chinese government is considering taking its anti-doping efforts up a notch.

"This is a long term project. We are negotiating at the moment on a memorandum of understanding with the government here in Beijing," he said. "This is a complicated exercise but I am very pleased that the Chinese government is prepared to consider this type of assistance."

Taken from the New York Times & ShanghaiDaily.com

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