Authorities testing for doping ‘like fox guarding hen house’
Claire Newell, Callum Adams
Luke Heighton
SPORTING authorities who test for banned substances may not be independent, the former head of drug testing in athletics has warned, amid calls for a change in the law to crack down on dopers.
In the wake of a Daily Telegraph investigation revealing how members of Justin Gatlin’s team offered to illicitly supply performance-enhancing drugs to undercover reporters, MPS and leading figures in the world of sport have called for doping to be made a criminal offence.
Dick Pound, the first president of the World Anti Doping Agency, said while some regulators were impartial, others “were not”. He added: “The system is quite sound and the science is quite robust, but the issue is the people who don’t want this to work. They get in the way of clean sport.”
Professor Charles Yesalis, who has given evidence to the United States Congress on several occasions about doping in sport, questioned whether sporting authorities were adequately able to probe doping allegations, describing it as the “fox guarding the hen house”.
“We’ve all heard the rumours that positive drug tests are being squashed,” said Prof Yesalis.
He continued: “There is big money in sport, marketing and therefore it is entirely possible that some authorities might not really want to expose high profile stars for doping.”