Arafat Hasan of DOT
Beijing is reportedly cracking down on doping ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics to be held there. State media reported that Chinese athletes who use performance-enhancing drugs will now receive criminal punishments and jail terms from next year. China’s sports administration and top judicial authority are drafting rules that would apply criminal law to doping cases, official news agency Xinhua stated Friday. Citing remarks made at a Friday meeting by Gou Zhongwen, director of China’s sports administration, Xinhua said that the new anti-doping punishments will be put into effect “probably in early 2019”.
“It is our will to show the world we are really serious about anti-doping, and are taking concrete measures on fight against doping,” said Gou.
Doping scandals have riddled China’s international sporting record in the past decade, with some athletes stripped of Olympic gold medals.
In January 2017, three Chinese women’s weightlifting gold medalists at the 2008 Beijing Olympics were disqualified and stripped of their medals for doping following a reanalysis of their drug tests.
Later that year, a Chinese doctor claimed that there had been a systematic doping program in China during the 1980s and 1990s across a range of sports, in an interview with German media.
All medals won by Chinese athletes at major international tournaments in the last two decades of the 20th century are tainted by doping, alleged the whistleblower, Xue Yinxian.
-Source: AFP