OLYMPIANS SIGN PLEDGE ON TESTING

Nearly every potential Olympian has signed a pledge to repay any
public funding and incentives if he or she tests positive to drugs
before or during the Sydney Games.

More than 1,000 of our leading athletes and support staff have made
the pledge as part of their team agreement with the Australian Olympic
Committee.

Sponsors of athletes have also included an anti-doping clause in their
agreements at the instigation of the AOC.

The secretary-general of the AOC, Mr Craig McLatchey, said any athlete
who had not signed the pledge would not be selected for the Olympics.

"It's a significant financial disincentive," Mr McLatchey said. "Using
a performance-enhancing substance is cheating and anyone caught
cheating will be penalised."

All 1,200 members of the Australian "shadow team" - possible Olympic
competitors - have been written to and asked to sign the pledge as
part of their team agreement. More than 1,000 have already signed,
including almost every high-profile athlete. The remainder, mostly
those overseas, are expected to sign soon.

Mr McLatchey said the initiative, begun by the AOC last year, arose
from concerns that athletes are motivated to take sports drugs for
financial gain.

"It was put to us that athletes could be tempted to use banned sports
drugs because of the financial incentive," he said. "We wanted to
create a financial disincentive to balance it out."

Athletes found committing doping offences at the Olympics will have to
repay all benefits paid to them by the AOC and the Fosters Sports
Foundation in connection with the Games.

Successful athletes would also have to repay any awards from the AOC's
lucrative medal incentive scheme in the event of a positive test, Mr
McLatchey said. The conditions also extend to coaches and support
staff, who will face life bans from the Olympics if implicated in
doping and have to repay any financial support they have received.

"We want to win," Mr McLatchey said. "But only fairly."

A large number of elite athletes have included the anti-doping clause
in their private sponsorship deals, he said. Many large sport sponsors
have also approached the AOC to say they had adopted the initiative.

Several companies, such as Telstra and the National Australia Bank,
confirmed they had included anti-doping clauses in their contracts.

The clauses are designed to terminate sponsorships in the case of
inappropriate behaviour.

Nike said it was considering introducing an anti-doping clause in its
sponsorships.

"We have a stake in upholding public perceptions and drugs in sport is
an important issue," a Nike spokeswoman said.