|
THE SCOOP: SUNDAY, JUNE
29
WTA to keep HQ in Florida
Tours push for blood and more stringent urine
tests
By
Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net
FROM WIMBLEDON – After flirting
with moving its offices to the Saddlebrook Resort, Los Angeles and
Atlanta, the Sanex WTA Tour voted on Saturday to keep its offices
in St. Petersburg, Florida, indefinitely, tennisreporters.net
has learned.
Tours push
for blood and more stringent urine tests
The ITF, ATP and WTA Tours will begin blood and urine testing for
the banned endurance-enhancing substance EPO in the near future,
pending approval by tennis' ruling bodies.
ATP Vice President of Rules and Competition Richard Ings told tr.net
that he was confident that the players will approve the new procedures,
which include a complex urine test that was first attempted by IOC
officials at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
EPO raises the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood and can not
be verified by only a blood test. However, if a player's blood is
found to contain a suspicious substance, the tours will freeze the
player's urine and ship it off to a lab, where a more complicated
test for EPO will be performed. At this date, there are only two
or three labs in the world that are currently testing for EPO.
"We could start testing in a week, month, or a couple of months,"
said Ings. "We have to first draft the language of the new
rules and they have to be signed off on. But the players are anxious
to get something in place as quickly as possible."
According to Ings, the new urine test has been challenged twice
in the Europe-based Court of Arbitration of Sport. One appeal was
upheld and the other was denied.
The ITF, ATP and WTA work together under the joint Tennis Anti-Doping
Program.
|
Susan Mullane
Camerawork USA, Inc.
Guillermo Coria
|
In the past two years, two players
–Argentines Juan Ignacio Chela and Guillermo Coria – have
tested positive for banned substances and suspended. Former Aussie
Open champion Petr Korda tested positive for steroids in 1998 and
was banned for a year, effectively ending his career.
A few weeks ago, French player Nicolas Escude told a French paper
that the use of performance-enhancing drugs amongst Latin American
players was rampant.
"To say that tennis today is clean, you have to be living in
a dream world,'' Escude said.
Tim Henman added, "We get tested all the time, between a half
a dozen times to a dozen times a year. Some guy rocks up on your
door step and says, 'You're doing a drug test.' If they've caught
people, it's a step in the right direction. I don't think we suddenly
be thinking there is a drug issue in the sport."
|
