Doping warning issued

THE head of the World Anti-Doping Agency has called on athletes using performing enhancing drugs to pull themselves out of the London Olympics.

WADA president John Fahey said the Games would be the most tested ever and that athletes owed it to their teams and their opponents, as well as the image of the Olympics, to play fair and quit before competing. “I say this in the clearest way possible: if you are a doping athlete and you are planning to compete in London then you must withdraw from your Olympic team,” Fahey said in a statement. “Doping is cheating, plain and simple. And if you compete in London as a doped athlete then not only will you be cheating your fellow athletes, you will be cheating sports fans across the world, doing a disservice to your national flag and flouting the ideals of the Olympic Movement.”

The ‘in-competition’ testing period start with the opening of the Athletes Village on 16 July. There will be around 6,250 samples analysed at the Games while UK Anti Doping have also been mandated to test in pre-competition training camps.