AUSSIES TOUGH ON DRUGS IN SPORTS

South Korea--Australian Olympic officials are taking a hard-line approach to
drugs in sports -tougher, in some ways, than the International Olympic
Committee. A highly placed member of the IOC suggests it's tough enough to
scare away athletes from international events in that country. But John
Coates, president of the Australian Olympic Committee, refutes the
suggestion by IOC executive board member Jacques Rogge that international
sports organizations would refuse to stage events in Australia if athletes
could face jail for doping offenses. "I don't think it's going to cost us,"
Coates said Tuesday. "A number of people could say the reverse: We are
selecting a country that is doing everything possible to make it a clean
event." The two Olympic representatives made their feelings known during an
executive conference. Olympic officials are in Seoul to discuss preparations
for a world anti-drug conference to be held at Lausanne, Switzerland, Feb.
2/4. The four-day conference, called in the wake of the drug scandals that
marred the Tour de France, will finalize plans for the creation of a special
Olympic agency to coordinate drug-testing throughout the world.

On Tuesday, the Australian Olympic committee said that athletes using
performance-enhancing drugs at the Sydney Olympics will face criminal fines
and would be jailed only if they were caught trafficking.

Before Tuesday's decision, Australian Olympic officials were at odds with
the IOC, which had opposed any criminal action against drug cheats.

The IOC insisted that only traffickers and dealers should be prosecuted,
while athletes should be sanctioned by sports bodies alone.

"At no time have I proposed that athletes who test positive for drugs should
go to jail," Coates said.

"The only time an athlete would ever find themselves in prison is if they
had a commercial or traffickable amount of drugs." Coates denied that his
proposals, announced last month in Australia, called for two-year jail terms
for athletes caught using steroids.

He said he was pushing for Australian laws to be changed so that penalties
for "hard sports drugs" were as strict as those for narcotics.

Possession or personal use of individual doses of performance-enhancing
drugs could result in criminal action, but only in fines, not jail, Coates
said.

Rogge said Tuesday he was happy with Coates' clarification that jail would
apply only to traffickers.

IOC vice president Dick Pound of Canada said board members were eager to
hear Coates' explanation.

"The first impression conveyed to us suggested a rather scorched-earth
policy which I'm sure he did not have in mind and I hope he didn't," Pound
said.

"I, for one, do not want to see sports competitions run by the police and I
don't want to see athletes who were selected for doping control led away by
police." At Sydney, any athlete testing positive for drugs would be
subjected to existing IOC rules, including disqualification from the games.
However, an Olympic athlete involved in supplying or selling drugs to others
could face criminal prosecution.

"If there are international athletes, coaches or other officials who are in
possession of drugs in a commercial quantity or traffickable amount then
they ought be subject to these stricter laws," Coates said.

Coates also said he wants the Australian government to ban two popular
performance-enhancing drugs -EPO and DHEA. EPO, an endurance-boosting
hormone, was at the center of the scandal at this summer's Tour de France.
DHEA is an anabolic steroid.

Copyright 1998 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst