The politics of the fight against doping in sport

In 2005 the IAAF Congress resisted some pressure for a return to a four-ban by proposing the matter be put before a sub committee. This time around the Congress was insistent.
News coming out of the IOC somehow seems to send the wrong signals. Days prior to the commencement of the IAAF's World Championships in Osaka, the IOC Executive Board made some announcements that, once stripped of the hype, really bodes no good.
IOC President, Jacques Rogge, was quoted as stating to the international media in Osaka: "Recent doping-related events remind us that anti-doping measures do have an impact but also that the fight against doping in sport is a daily battle which must be fought in concert by the sports authorities, sports teams, athletes and coaches, and Governments."
While undoubtedly there are some successes these remain small compared to what some critics see as the pervasiveness of drugs in sport, including Olympic sport. In a sense it may well be that the IOC President is too anxious to pat himself on the back for ‘small mercies' while the really big drug issues seem to escape the organisation and its many affiliates.
Rogge further stated: "The measures that we have reviewed today aim to reinforce the IOC's zero tolerance policy that we already uphold through an unprecedented increase in testing – a 90 per cent increase from Sydney in 2000 to Beijing next year where 4500 tests will be conducted – the collaboration with judicial authorities, and the creation of Disciplinary Commissions when needed to investigate incidents of doping which may have affected past Olympic Games."
So the IOC is involved in the conduct of more tests, big deal!
It also claims that it will conduct 5,500 tests at the London 2012 Olympics and that is supposed to give us the impression that the international community is really working at ridding sport of drug cheats.
Ridiculous!
The IOC President and all those around him seem to have forgotten the faux pas that was the incident involving two top Greek athletes during the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. The evidence seemed to support the view that the accident in which the two athletes were involved was really something stage-managed. Also stage-managed appeared to be their stay in hospital for treatment.