Sydney: Despite all the talk about Drug, Passports, etc, Australian athletes have apparently been evading drug tests by failing to answer their telephones, prompting anti-doping officials to call for sanctions to be imposed on serial offenders.
All this at a time when IOC executive board members, meeting in Lausanne on Monday, approved blood tests to be conducted from September 2 in Australia for endurance drug EPO (erythropoietin).
The Australian Sports Drug Agency (ADSA) chief executive Natalie Howson has called for a tougher approach to athletes who failed to supply updated contact details. She spoke out after an investigation into ASDA found "a very real problem being experienced is the level of uncontactable athletes".
"A major ongoing difficulty relates to ASDA's necessary reliance on the relevant sport (federation) to provide timely and accurate information concerning its athletes," the report found.
The IOC member in charge of Australia's Olympic preparations, Jacques Rogge, admitted there were concerns about national-level athletes evading tests, saying: "It's easy to get lost in Australia."
A report has said ASDA was aware of situations where its drug testers had to rely on mobile phone numbers to contact athletes required for testing. It also implied that ASDA had been forced to leave notifications of drug tests on answering machines, giving athletes a chance of evading the tests by moving to remote areas where it was expensive for ASDA to make "one-off trips".
The investigation was conducted after former Australian discus thrower Werner Reiterer alleged sports administrators were covering up for athletes when it came to drug tests.
Howson said serious consideration should be given for all sports to adopt a system used by international swimming, which imposed four-year suspensions on swimmers who could not be contacted three consecutive times for drug tests.
"We don't have any problem getting in touch with swimmers," she said. A review should be conducted after the Olympics, involving the Australian Sports Commission and national sports federations, she added.
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All this at a time when IOC executive board members, meeting in Lausanne on Monday, approved blood tests to be conducted from September 2 in Australia for endurance drug EPO (erythropoietin).
The Australian Sports Drug Agency (ADSA) chief executive Natalie Howson has called for a tougher approach to athletes who failed to supply updated contact details. She spoke out after an investigation into ASDA found "a very real problem being experienced is the level of uncontactable athletes".
"A major ongoing difficulty relates to ASDA's necessary reliance on the relevant sport (federation) to provide timely and accurate information concerning its athletes," the report found.
The IOC member in charge of Australia's Olympic preparations, Jacques Rogge, admitted there were concerns about national-level athletes evading tests, saying: "It's easy to get lost in Australia."
A report has said ASDA was aware of situations where its drug testers had to rely on mobile phone numbers to contact athletes required for testing. It also implied that ASDA had been forced to leave notifications of drug tests on answering machines, giving athletes a chance of evading the tests by moving to remote areas where it was expensive for ASDA to make "one-off trips".
The investigation was conducted after former Australian discus thrower Werner Reiterer alleged sports administrators were covering up for athletes when it came to drug tests.
Howson said serious consideration should be given for all sports to adopt a system used by international swimming, which imposed four-year suspensions on swimmers who could not be contacted three consecutive times for drug tests.
"We don't have any problem getting in touch with swimmers," she said. A review should be conducted after the Olympics, involving the Australian Sports Commission and national sports federations, she added.
Professional Management Group
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