Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Ye Shiwen row: IOC says it will catch Olympics drugs cheats

Ye Shiwen

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It comes after doubts were raised over the performance of Chinese gold medallist Ye Shiwen, who has said she would never use banned substances.

A US coach earlier said the swimmer's massive victory in Saturday's 400m individual medley was "disturbing".

But British Olympics chief Lord Moynihan said she was "clean" and "deserves recognition for her talent".

Meanwhile, the British equestrian team of Tina Cook, William Fox-Pitt, Mary King, Zara Phillips and Nicola Wilson have won a silver medal in the eventing competition. Germany took the gold.

And amid an ongoing row over empty seats at venues, Olympics organisers Locog said more than two million spectators had turned out to watch the first three days of the Games - but that meant attendance had dropped below 90% on two of those three days.

In other developments:

Ye Shiwen took seconds off her personal best to break the world record and win a gold medal in the 400m medley on Saturday, swimming faster in the last 50m than the winner of the men's event.

There is no evidence against her and all medal winners are drug-tested.

John Leonard - the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association - said her performance was "unbelievable".

But Ye Shiwen said: "There is no problem with doping. The Chinese team has a firm policy so there is no problem with that."

British Olympic Association chairman Lord Moynihan said the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) was "on top of the game".

"She's been through Wada's programme and she's clean. That's the end of the story. Ye Shiwen deserves recognition for her talent," he told a press conference.

International Olympic Committee communications director Mark Adams told a seperate press conference on Tuesday: "We have a very strong drugs testing programme. And we're very confident that if there are cheats then we will catch them."

Mr Adams said that before the Olympics began the IOC had issued one suspension and one temporary suspension.

He said there had been 1,706 tests so far, of which 1,344 were urine and 362 were blood.

The first five athletes are tested automatically and then two others at random, he said.

Mr Adams said the public should not be surprised if they saw big performances.

"We need to get real here here - these are the world's best athletes competing at the highest level with records being broken all over the place," he said.

Games organisers Locog put 3,800 extra unused "accredited" seats on sale on Monday night across 30 sessions and 15 sports. Almost all sold out, Locog said.

It follows criticism over empty seats which had been allocated to sports federations.

Locog communications director Jackie Brock-Doyle said the process of selling unused tickets would continue to take place on a day-by-day basis.

The tickets can be bought only online, before they are picked up at collection points in venues for pre-purchased tickets.

Locog is also looking at a plan to have "print at home tickets" for those bought online.

BBC Olympics correspondent James Pearce says the best advice on securing seats is to stay up late because tickets are being put on the London 2012 ticketing site late at night or early in the morning.

Locog has also released attendance figures for the Games so far.

It says 856,000 people attended on Saturday - 86% of capacity - including a "conservative" crowd estimate for the men's cycling road race of 500,000.

On Sunday, 900,000 attended (92% of capacity), including 300,000 for the women's cycling road race.

There was an attendance of 370,000 across all sports (88% of capacity) on Monday.



Source & Image : BBC

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