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USA TODAY

July 12, 2001, Thursday, FINAL EDITION

SLOC calls for 100% testing Proposal: All athletes face pre-Games drug tests
BYLINE: Vicki Michaelis

SECTION: SPORTS; Pg. 13C

LENGTH: 532 words

DATELINE: MOSCOW

MOSCOW -- Every athlete competing at the 2002 Winter Olympics

will take at least one unannounced, out-of-competition drug test
before the Games begin in February if an unprecedented plan by
Games organizers works.

Never before has an organizing committee endeavored to make sure

100% of the athletes take no-notice tests before the Gamesbegin.

"It's a very good initiative," said Jacques Rogge, vice president

of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission.

"If we accomplish it, it will change, in my view, the world of

Olympic sport," Mitt Romney, Salt Lake Organizing Committee president,
said Wednesday after meeting with the IOC's executive board.

At the least, it will be another step in trying to change the

world perception toward U.S. anti-doping efforts. The USA has
come under fire in recent years, especially after news of U.S.
shot putter C.J. Hunter's positive drug tests came out at the
Sydney Olympics.

Within weeks of closing ceremonies in Sydney, the U.S. Anti-Doping

Agency (USADA) began operations, and the USA has impressed the
international anti-doping community with the moves it has made
since.

"It's been a remarkable progress," Harri Syvasalmi, secretary

general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said Wednesday. "It's
fair to say it's really been a fast track, and we are very happy
about that."

The progress includes the U.S. Olympic Committee's decision in

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SLOC calls for 100% testing Proposal: All athletes face pre-Games drug tests USA TODAY July 12, 2001, Thursday,

February to subject U.S. professional athletes competing in the

Olympics to the same out-of-competition, no-notice testing as
all other Olympians.

SLOC's plan would extend that testing to all NHL players, whether
American or not.

Though anti-doping officials lauded the plan, they also cautioned

that it is an ambitious one.

"It's a realistic goal," Syvasalmi said of the 100%, "but I

wouldn't be too upset if it's only 80%."

SLOC has discussed its plan with a majority of the national Olympic
committees and international winter sports federations, who will
be doing a majority of the testing. SLOC, through USADA, aims
to test any athletes not already given no-notice tests by those
agencies after they arrive in North America -- either for pre-Games
training or the Games themselves.

SLOC estimates it will test between 500 and 1,000 athletes, or

up to 40% of the 2,500 expected to compete, in order to hit the
100% mark.

Reliable tests for human growth hormone still haven't been developed,
and tests for endurance-boosting erythropoetin, or EPO, might
not be widespread or inexpensive enough in time to ensure that
all athletes in Salt Lake City have been tested for it.

One more for Beijing: Romney also entered the fray over
Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. "We should be
building bridges and not walls. The Olympics builds bridges. For
this reason, Beijing should not be discarded," he said, adding
later that it was not an endorsement for Beijing but rather "an
endorsement for considering all candidate cities fully."

Paris and Toronto are Beijing's strongest competitors, and Osaka,

Japan, and Istanbul, Turkey, are long shots. IOC members vote
Friday on the 2008 host.

LOAD-DATE: July 12, 2001

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, b/w, Jacques Demarthon, AFP; An idea in place: Mitt Romney's Salt Lake Organizing
Committee has discussed its proposal with other countries' federations.

Copyright 2001 Gannett Company, Inc.