DOPING SUMMIT SNAGGED OVER SANCTIONS, AGENCY

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Feb. 4 (Kyodo) -- The IOC-sponsored world congress
on doping in sports appeared deadlocked over calls for mandatory sanctions
for drug cheats and an independent monitoring agency as meetings came to a
close Wednesday.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had hoped to launch a watchdog
agency and forge an agreement during the three-day doping summit on a
two-year ban on athletes caught using steroids, but opponents to both
proposals make an agreement unlikely this time.

IOC officials suggested that they could probably get a basic agreement on
the creation of a new monitoring agency, but summit participants were at
odds over the organization and operation of the agency.

Most notable were calls from the United States and European Union that IOC
officials should not command the top positions in the proposed agency since
the IOC is currently embroiled in a bribery and corruption scandal.

Meanwhile, hopes for an agreement on a mandatory two-year ban on athletes
caught using steroids also appeared on the rocks with representatives from
soccer and cycling arguing that bans would lead to unnecessary legal problems.

Soccer, with a large number of professional players, is concerned that
banning players for illicit drug use would lead to a parade of civil suits
through the courts as the players sue for their right to work.

Still, Primo Nebiolo, head of the Association of Summer Olympic
International Federations (ASOIF), seeking an agreement on the two-year
ban, offered a compromise under which federations would be able to make
exceptions to the two-year ban in some cases.

The compromise proposal, however, has been met with sharp criticism from
members of the athletes commission and officials from a number of the other
international sports federations.