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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>More than 300 drug tests for European Championships</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>AFP
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>GOTHENBURG, Sweden (AFP) - Organisers will initiate more than 300 drugs tests on athletes during the week-long European Championships in a bid to avoid a recurrence of the US doping scandal that has rocked the sport.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"In the field of doping, we have to fulfil all obligations. Rules have to be respected," Hansjorg Wirz, president of the European Athletics Association, vowed Sunday.
"Since the last championships (in Munich in 2002), we have tripled the number of tests.<P class=StoryText align=justify>There will be around 315 tests during competition," he said, adding that there had been 3,000 tests carried out in the run-up to the highlight of the European athletics calendar.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Wirz was outspoken in his criticism of the latest doping scandal that sees Justin Gatlin, world and Olympic 100m champion, facing a lifetime ban after he failed a drugs test registering abnormal levels of testosterone.
"We don't want to bring the American experience into Europe," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"It's clear that the rules there are not respected as they are in Europe."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Wirz, however, failed to mention the fact that the winner of the 100m at the European Championships four years ago, Dwain Chambers, was himself found guilty of doping and stripped of his title.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Chambers is back in Gothenburg with the British team after serving a two-year ban that saw him also forfeit his gold medals from the 100m and 4x100m relay and be stripped of the national record of 9.87sec he held with Linford Christie.
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>AFP
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>GOTHENBURG, Sweden (AFP) - Organisers will initiate more than 300 drugs tests on athletes during the week-long European Championships in a bid to avoid a recurrence of the US doping scandal that has rocked the sport.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"In the field of doping, we have to fulfil all obligations. Rules have to be respected," Hansjorg Wirz, president of the European Athletics Association, vowed Sunday.
"Since the last championships (in Munich in 2002), we have tripled the number of tests.<P class=StoryText align=justify>There will be around 315 tests during competition," he said, adding that there had been 3,000 tests carried out in the run-up to the highlight of the European athletics calendar.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Wirz was outspoken in his criticism of the latest doping scandal that sees Justin Gatlin, world and Olympic 100m champion, facing a lifetime ban after he failed a drugs test registering abnormal levels of testosterone.
"We don't want to bring the American experience into Europe," he said.<P class=StoryText align=justify>"It's clear that the rules there are not respected as they are in Europe."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Wirz, however, failed to mention the fact that the winner of the 100m at the European Championships four years ago, Dwain Chambers, was himself found guilty of doping and stripped of his title.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Chambers is back in Gothenburg with the British team after serving a two-year ban that saw him also forfeit his gold medals from the 100m and 4x100m relay and be stripped of the national record of 9.87sec he held with Linford Christie.