Special report: 2008 Olympic Games
CANBERRA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing Games will
be the cleanest Olympics in years despite concerns about the effectiveness of
tests for blood doping, President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), John
Fahey, said here on Wednesday.
Though Fahey refused to guarantee a completely
drug-free Games, he said cheats are more likely to be caught by the doping
agency this year than ever before.
"One has to recognize the question of doping in sport
has been around now for a long time," Fahey told Australian Broadcasting
Corporation (ABC) Radio.
"There's been evidence that at successive games it's
occurred. (But) I can give this guarantee: there's a far greater likelihood that
anybody cheating or attempting to cheat in the Beijing Games will be caught than
in any other time of our history."
WADA was established in 1999 after the previous
year's Tour de France was rocked by the Festina affair, which exposed systematic
blood doping within the sport.