Britain to consider criminalizing doping in sports

LONDON: Britain may consider imposing criminal sanctions for doping before the 2012 London Olympics.

The issue will be the focus of an anti-doping commission set up Tuesday by the British Olympic Association in the first major review of drug-testing rules in Britain.

The six-member panel will also examine the rule, introduced in 1992, that automatically bans any British athlete who has a drug offense from competing in any future Olympics.

Creation of an independent anti-doping agency, along the lines of bodies set up in the United States and Australia, will also be considered.

BOA chairman Colin Moynihan said criminalizing doping for athletes and suppliers was a delicate issue.

"You would need to introduce legislation that in practice deters those around the athlete who are actively involved in the doping scandal," Moynihan said. "Getting that right in legislation has been a challenge for a number of countries that have implemented it."

Italy, France and Spain are among countries with criminal anti-doping laws.

Foreign athletes training or competing in Britain would also be subject to any criminal charges.

Several European countries have passed laws in the past two years to criminalize doping in sports.

British cyclist David Millar faced a court case in France after testing positive for the banned blood-boosting hormone EPO, and Italian police raided the Austrian cross-country and biathlon team lodgings at the 2006 Turin Olympics in search of doping substances.

Spain introduced criminal legislation for doping in February following the Operation Puerto blood doping investigation. In Germany, legislation was proposed in March for tougher penalties for trafficking in performance-enhancing drugs.

The British commission is made up of the BOA and London 2012's chief medical officer, Richard Budgett; 2000 Olympics modern pentathlon champion Steph Cook; British Cycling Federation president Brian Cookson; International Olympic Committee member Craig Reedie; medical adviser to the Lawn Tennis Association Michael Turner, and lawyer Charles Flint.

Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC's medical commission, will be a senior adviser.

"Doping is unacceptable, a social crime," Ljungqvist said in The Times of London on Tuesday. "A coming host of an Olympic Games should show a good example here."

UK Sport, which currently oversees drug testing and punishment in Britain, had a mixed reaction to the creation of the BOA panel.

"Until there is greater clarity on the commission's purpose, therefore, it is difficult to see what value it is going to add over the next year and at a time when the UK system is already under close scrutiny," UK Sport chief executive John Steele said.

"The last thing British sport needs as we build up to Beijing 2008 and London 2012 is distraction, confusion about roles and duplication of effort."