OLYMPICS AND DRUGS

The drug scandals rocking the world of international sports have
confronted the Olympic movement with a much larger credibility problem
than its leaders seem to realize. Although the Olympic Games no longer
represent the ideal of amateurism, they still embody ideals of fair
play and honest competition. Yet drugs have put even those simple
values at risk. Why in the world would anyone, much less hundreds of
millions of people, choose to watch a competition in which the race
goes not to the swift but to the chemically enhanced?

This has been a drug-ridden summer in; sports. The legendary Tour de.
France nearly collapsed in embarrassment when the world's best cycling
team, Festina, were suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs.
The International Amateur Athletic Federation announced that two of
America's top athletes, the sprinter Dennis Mitchell and the 1996
Olympic shot put champion, Randy Barnes, had tested positive for
illegal substances, and suspended both. Then, last Thursday, Michelle
Smith-De Bruin, the Irish swimmer who captured hearts and three gold
medals at the 1996 Summer Olympics, was charged with manipulating a
drug test and banned from further competition.

Reporters who cover sports say there is already so much cynicism
among the athletes that anyone who sets a new world record is
immediately suspected of doping. So far that cynicism has not spread
to the public, but it will surely do so unless the authorities move
quickly to develop a more credible and comprehensive system of testing
and punishment. To be fair, the International Olympic Committee does a
far more effective job of policing drug use than other athletic
bodies. But, given its responsibility for one of the world's premier
sports events, it must do even better. The first order of business is
to change attitudes at the top.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, the IOC's president, has convened a board
meeting in Lausanne on Aug. 20 to prepare for a doping "summit" next
January. But Mr. Samaranch's own commitment to the cause is suspect.
He recently suggested to the Spanish daily El Mundo that
performance-enhancing drugs should be permitted unless they pose a
threat to the athletes that use them a bizarre statement that shocked
many of his colleagues.

Second, the IQC must be ready to spend serious money on the problem.
The IOC and others have agreed to put $2 million into new research,
but experts say more will be needed to develop tests as sophisticated
as the drugs they are meant to detect. During the Tour de Prance
scandal, experts noted that there were no reliable tests to detect the
substance at the heart of the scandal---EPO, a synthetic hormone that
increases aerobic capacity.

Third, the IOC must bring other governing bodies into line. The
international federations that govern three Olympic sports---cycling,
volleyball and tennis---do not even participate in the lOC's testing
program. It is also common knowledge that some national Olympic
committees are far more vigilant than others. Dick Schultz, an
American Olympic of ficial, put the matter well in a recent interview:
"There is -a morass out there that needs to be reviewed to deterlriine
what is performance-enhancing and what is not. I don't think there's
any question that the drug gurus who are trying to beat the system are
ahead of the police."

The next Games are two years away. That is not a lot of time for Mr.
Samaranch to get ahead of the gurus.

THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Checked-by: "Don Beck"