Role Of The Ioc And The Council Of Europe In Anti-Doping Policy.

Role of the IOC and the Council of Europe in anti-doping policy.

Anti-Doping policy has altered from concerning a small group of governing bodies and countries to a large global affair in the last 40 years. This has encouraged development of series of international agreements, development of series of international agreements, the establishment of new global forums (World Anti-Doping Agency) and the commitment of many millions of dollars of public and government body funding.

Up to the late 80s, anti-doping policies among major sporting countries could be seen falling into 1 of 3 categories:

- 1) small number countries Ð'- inc. France Belgium Scandinavian states where Gov. actively pursuing anti doping strategy

- 2) larger amount of passive countries such as the US and West Germany, did not treat doping as priority for public policy due to either lack of resources or to reluctance to investigate own sports system in case it jeopardized their increasing int. success (such as Australia + Canada)

- 3) most significant group which included former East Germany and Soviet Union. The Gov. actively colluded in doping of its international athletes.

40 years ago there was no testing and little discussion of drug abuse within sport, so the doping issue is very recent and policy solutions have only been introduced recently as well.

Evolution of AD can b traced along 4 main dimensions

- Clarification of policy focus

- Generation and maintenance of political commitment

- Technology development

- The establishment of the necessary resource infrastructure

Where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Council of Europe come in:

A series of high profile scandals in early to mid 60s forced issue on agenda of government and sports bodies. The IOC had been wary of government interest and involvement in sport and Olympic sport and they then established Medical commission in 61 and in 62, they decide they would take a stand against doping in sports. the Convention of European Sport Governing Bodies was scheduled for January 1963, at which a definition of doping was set up. This was adopted by the IOC:

This early attempt at defining the problem was the start of a period of discussion by all key bodies interested in doping.

Drug testing began around the same time as this convention. But it wasn't until 5 years later that it re-established and reinvigorated the Medical Commission with a bright to advise the IOC and to oversee development policy. In 1966, 5 cyclists at the World Road Racing Champs refused to give urine sample. This caused criticism and discussion, and lead the Council of Europe to debate and pass a resolution condemning doping. Included in this Resolution was a new definition to doping.

It also included a recommendation to member governments to encourage sports associations and federations to initiate action to condemn doping and to penalize offenders as well as ask member states to encourage federations to apply anti doping regulations "to any person who in another member state, has been penalized".

The Council of Europe's intervention was significant as it responded to wave of public concern but also showed that government had an interest in the issue of doping.Since then, more and more governments were introducing legislation or regulations aimed at drug abuse in sport These actions spurred IOC and number of key international federation (such as the IAAF and FIFA) into action Ð'- at which point more testing was introduced. However there was an obvious reluctance by IOC to adopt a central policy role but it had increased its involvement in policy area such as accreditation of laboratories and maintenance of what has become the benchmark list of banned substance and practices. The IOC saw its responsibilities limited to alerting national Olympic committees to the need to promoted drug free sport and to ensure that local organizing committees for Olympic Games made arrangements for testing.

However, by the early 70s it was acknowledged that the major drugs abuse were no longer stimulants but steroid. So a test for many drugs in the steroid class was developed and this was to be piloted at the 1972 Olympic Games and officially used at 1976 MontrÐ"©al games. First list of banned substance and practices was then published in 1971 by the IOC and in the 1972 munich games Ð'- 2000 tests were conducted and only 7 athletes were to be disqualified.

But the IOC was still reluctant to adopt leading role in global policy development and it was forced to become more deeply involved in a number of aspects of anti-doping policy implementation.

The accreditation of laboratories started to be undertaken by IAAF in mid 1970s

IOC established quality standards for labs which resulted in IOC requirements becoming the standards for all sports drug analysis laboratories.

The IOC deserve much credit for developing quality standards but there were a few problems such as there is no independent verification that labs have met the current standards or deserved re-accreditation.

Late 70s and early 80s Ð'- lead on debating and developing policy laid

with the IOC and with the IAAF. Policy making on doping