DRUG ATHLETES SLIP THROUGH LOOPHOLE

Two athletes have been questioned by Australian Customs officials for
importing hard sports drugs in recent months, but they have escaped lengthy
sports bans because of a legal loophole.

Concerned International Olympic Committee members were seeking the
identities and sports of the athletes from the federal Minister for Customs
and Consumer Affairs, Mr Warren Truss, so that sport penalties could be
imposed.

However, a spokesman for Mr Truss said the information would not be
released.

The athletes are believed to have been carrying the dangerous sports drug
erythropoietin (EPO) and the testosterone derivative dehydroepiandrosterone
(DHEA).

They are illegal in sports circles, attracting tough sanctions, but EPO is
not prohibited under Australian law.

In the most recent cases, Customs officers were powerless to seize the
drugs, unlike last January when Chinese swimmer Yuan Yuan was found with
human growth hormone at Sydney airport.

Yuan and her coach were deported and received tough international and
Chinese sanctions.

A leading overseas triathlete was caught with EPO in Perth just before the
World Triathlon Championships last November, but was released because the
athlete had not committed any Commonwealth offence.

A Customs source said officers were ``paralysed by the Customs Act'' and
worried that, by seizing such sports drugs as EPO, they could leave
themselves open to being sued for wrongful arrest and illegal seizure.

EPO is a hormone that helps the body produce extra red blood cells to
provide extra oxygen-carrying capacity.[peIt is abused by endurance athletes
in particular but is currently in favour with power athletes as well because
it is not detectable by current drug testing methods.] DHEA is the
controversial steroid substance taken by Brisbane AFL player Alastair Lynch,
who said he needed it to negate chronic fatigue syndrome.

The Australian Olympic Committee's president, Mr John Coates, said the rules
needed to be tightened so that all performance-enhancing sports drugs were
banned.

Mr Coates has stressed that failure to prohibit such drugs as a matter of
urgency would embarrass Australia at the world conference on doping in sport
in Lausanne, Switzerland in February.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst