MADRID -- The International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge on Thursday called for swifter actions by governments and international federations to fully comply with global anti-doping rules.
President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Jacques Rogge speaks at the inaugural session of the World conference on Doping in Sport in Madrid. [Agencies] |
Rogge demanded a lot more from the governments and sports bodies to achieve full compliance by next year when addressing the opening ceremony of the World Conference on Doing in Sports.
"I urge the international federations and national Olympic committees to accelerate their efforts to achieve full compliance with WADA's guidelines by January 1, 2009," said the Belgian lawyer, referring to the date when the new code comes into force.
"WADA will only have a full credibility when the governments and the Olympic movement are compliant.
"Both partners of WADA - the governments and the sports movement - have to do a lot, and they have to do it fast."
Only 70 governments have so far ratified the UNESCO anti-doping treaty out of nearly 200 nations that promised to do so at the previous doping summit in 2003.
WADA had threatened that any sport could be kicked out of the Olympics if their federations do nothing to combat doping.
Rogge also reiterated his call for Spanish authorities to release the full documents from the Operation Puerto investigation, which implicated dozens of cyclists in an alleged Madrid-based blood doping ring.
"We wait with great interest that the Spanish justice system makes a decision in the case so that sporting federations can use the information that is in these dossiers to take the necessary steps and impose disciplinary sanctions against guilty athletes," said the IOC head.
WADA president Dick Pound said Wednesday that he found it impossible to believe that cyclists are the only sportsmen implicated in Puerto probe.
