DRUGS IN SPORT : WHY THE IOC BOSS IS NOT PLAYING GAMES

Australians may be incredulous, but the big man of the Olympics
appears to have decided that if you can't beat drugs in sport, it's
time for some lateral thinking, writes MATTHEW MOORE.

WHEN the sprint champion Ben Johnson tested positive a decade ago now,
the world was stunned. Olympic officials reacted immediately, vowing
to step up their war on athlete doping as the only way to preserve the
ideal of Olympic competition.

This week the president of the International Olympic Committee, Juan
Antonio Samaranch, conceded the war can't be won. Despite all the
noise and all the money and all the dope-testing, more athletes are
using more drugs more often than ever before. Like the US forces in
Vietnam, Samaranch has realised he's fighting an unwinnable war.

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the remarkable
interview with the Olympic movement's most influential person. Two
full days after the Samaranch interview was published in the Madrid
paper El Mundo, Olympic organisers in Sydney are struggling to
understand how it could be that the Olympic chief has changed his mind
so dramatically on how international sport should deal with drugs.
Samaranch wants two changes. The first is to "drastically" cut the
number of banned drugs and the second is to only ban drugs which
damage the health of an athlete. He specifically said drugs which only
improve performance should not be banned.

This was no accidental slip of the tongue, despite the hopes of senior
sports officials around the world, especially in Sydney. Samaranch
gave his interview at a time of overwhelming evidence of widespread
drug use among elite sportsmen and women. To ensure he would be
accurately reported, he elected to be interviewed in Spanish, his
mother tongue.

With the Tour de France crippled by daily drug revelations, Samaranch
knew questions would focus on doping. Given his international network,
he was certain to be aware two American athletes - both medal winners
- - were about to be suspended for doping offences. He gave the
interview just as four Chinese swimmers were suspended for two years
for testing positive in Perth this year. Samaranch is still waiting
for the Irish gold medal-winning champion Michelle De Bruin to have
her case heard. He may know of a host more positives in the pipeline.

No matter who tests positive now, though, they will never shake the
world as Ben Johnson did. Drug use in sport has simply become too
widespread, too commonplace, for the world to be surprised any more.
That seems to be the conclusion Samaranch has come to in recent weeks.
What he is advocating is a tactical retreat to a position that can be
more readily, and credibly, defended. Finding this place is the
problem. He will find plenty of support among drug-testing agencies
for a much simpler list of prohibited drugs. Why have hundreds and
hundreds of banned substances, including widely available pain-killers
and cold remedies, when many of them can't even be detected in testing?

That's fine in theory, but reality is more complex. A boxer can take
pain-killers so he won't hurt when he's hit, but surely this makes him
a more dangerous opponent. In the expected outcry following his
interview, Samaranch called a summit at the IOC headquarters in
Lausanne in January where he would like "a clear definition of doping"
to emerge. He is right to identify this need, but he knows how
difficult it will be to achieve. The whole world of doping is full of
inconsistencies and a summit is hardly going to resolve them all.

Ask why doping is banned and you get three common reasons: it gives

athletes an unfair advantage, it is bad for their health and it is a
bad example for the young. That's fine, until you argue these points
to their logical conclusion.

Sure, doping gives you an advantage, but so does high altitude
training, government funding, space-age equipment and sports
psychologists. Why not smooth out some of these bumps as well?

Australia's response to Samaranch has been largely one of incredulity
and anger. He's been condemned for chucking in the towel. But the
evidence is he is responding to a more pragmatic view of drug use that
appears to exist in Europe. For days after the Festina team were
booted out of the Tour de France, spectators called for their return.
Cyclists in the race staged a two-hour strike in support of them.
Perhaps Samaranch has decided drugs are the one issue that can kill
the Games if a workable solution is not found. And he's decided to
have a go at finding it, no matter whom he upsets.

Checked-by: "Rich O'Grady"