JAPAN: ATHLETICS - Olympic President Jacques Rogge says athletes caught doping even for minor offences would automatically be banned from next years Olympic Games in Beijing

Olympic president Jacques Rogge says athletes caught doping, would automatically be banned from the next Games. Olympic president Jacques Rogge took another stand against drug cheats in Osaka, Japan on Friday (August 24) when he said that athletes caught doping, even for minor offences, would automatically be banned from the next Games. Only a plea-bargain could save athletes from the ban, and even then the information traded must be highly important in the crusade against cheats, Rogge told reporters. "If you cheat, there will be no Olympic Games...that is the message," Rogge said, reiterating his tough stance. Flanked by world athletics body (IAAF) chairman Lamine Diack, Rogge underlined the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) commitment to rid sport of drug cheats. The IOC's Executive Board, meeting before the IAAF world championships in Osaka, discussed a series of measures aimed at strengthening the fight, Rogge said. "The IOC will make sure that if an athlete is penalised for six months, the athletes will not be allowed to participate in the next Olympic Games. We will step up the financial penalties, we have done that already, as you know by fining national Olympic Committees and the latest one was the Austrian Olympic Committee which was fined at the tune of one million US dollars. But we will also explore with International federation the possibility to give the financial penalties for athletes whenever needed," he said. "The measures that we have reviewed today aim to reinforce the IOC's zero-tolerance policy." Under the new measures, athletes who received suspensions of six months or more would be banned from competing at the subsequent Olympics. But the IOC will reserve the right to reduce penalties. "If an athlete reveals who gave him the EPO for example, who was behind it, was it the doctor or coach etcetera. If he tells of other cases, if the information is very valuable, then we might consider reducing the penalty," Rogge said. The IOC's toughened stance echoed Thursday's (August 23) calls by the IAAF for four-year bans for doping offences. Diack called on the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to impose stronger penalties for drug offences, including a four-year ban for serious first-time violations. "The IOC supports wholeheartedly the IAAF in this move. The four years sentence, proposed by IAAF is for the use of the certain substances, it will not be for every offence of course. In a way is a little bit the same measure the IOC has taken," said Rogge. WADA currently has a two-year penalty for serious violations by initial offenders. Another issue currently the subject of great debate is the threat of pollution in Beijing at next year's Olympics. Rogge had said recently that events could be postponed if the conditions proved to be intolerable, but he was confident that the authorities would be able to resolve the issue. "Beijing has a situation to improve on atmospheric conditions of course the answer is yes, but we are very hopeful and very confident they would achieve this by next year," he said.

ITN Source | August 25, 2007

Tags:. .proposed. .bans. .gave. .aimed. .aim