An hour from an hour is not easier

Fighters for the purity of sports will discuss changes to the World Anti -Doping Code in Madrid on Thursday will begin the World Anti -Doping Conference. In the light of the last scandals in cycling, athletics, tennis, the next congress of fighters for the purity of sports will be the second most important event after the Olympic Games. On the agenda - revolutionary changes in the World Anti -Doping Code and the election of the new head of the World Anti -Doping Agency.

Such events are impossible without prior preparation. Before making changes in the Code on the agenda, the interested parties discussed them more than once.

A pioneer of many innovations that are proposed to accept is an athletics.

To begin with, the International Athletics Association spoke out for a four -year disqualification of athletes who fell on the use of prohibited substances. It would seem that representatives of other sports should have been picked up by the revolutionary initiative of athletes, but they are still silent. Nevertheless, athletes continue to go selected.

The other day, the Association of athletes managers decided to refuse the services to those who have already stained themselves once. Earlier, a similar decision was made by the European Association of the organizers of international competitions, uniting 29 committees of all the largest athletics tournaments. “This is a very bold step,” says Raina Sodelberg, who seems to be confused from what happened. “On the one hand, we close the doors in front of athletes, which may have been unintentionally injured, but, on the other hand, we are obliged to fence off from them,” says.

Such precedents have already been. The athlete of Marion Jones, who was accused of using doping, at one time refused several European organizers, although there was no guilt of her guilt.

There is no unanimity even according to the so -called rule of one hour. It is assumed that athletes should continue to inform the agency’s commissioners about their whereabouts with an accuracy of one hour. How this will happen in practice is incomprehensible.

Even today, when the rules are not so tough, eminent athletes fall into unsightly stories. Those who were repeatedly checked. Fresh example: the famous Norwegian biathlete Ole Ainar Bjurndalen is recognized as a violator. So far, a strict warning has been issued to him - he did not inform the controllers that he would leave the training base in Austria. It turned out that he went to urgently visit his wife’s grandmother, also a famous biathlete, Natalie Santer.

There will be no serious sanctions against Bjorndalen. According to the current rules, the athlete is only then removed from the competition for three months if he left control three times. “I made a mistake,” Bjorndalen admitted. “But take into account the fact that over the past 10 days I have been tested five times.”

11/13/2007 / Tatyana Milevskaya material published in the newspaper No. 213 dated 11/14/2007.