"Shocked" China launches probe into WADA allegations
Baku, February 20 (AZERTAC). China will investigate claims that virtually all the raw materials used to produce illegal performance-enhancing drugs come from the country, even if they have serious reservations about their accuracy, state media said on Tuesday.
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general David Howman told last week that "ninety-nine percent" of the materials used by criminal gangs around the world to make the drugs were emanating from China.
"We are shocked at Mr. Howman`s comment," Jiang Zhixue, the head of anti-doping at China`s sports ministry, told the official Xinhua news agency.
"We are wondering where this 99 percent came from and what is his evidence. We have asked for a more detailed explanation from WADA."
Jiang said the probe would require coordination from various ministries as had happened in a crackdown on the manufacture and sale of banned performance-enhancing substances in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
China`s record on doping at elite levels of sport improved markedly after Beijing won the right to hold the 2008 Games, a far cry from the 1990s when the country`s rise to sporting superpower was accompanied by regular scandals.
Howman said the criminal gangs involved in supplying illegal drugs were also involved in match-fixing. Europol announced this month that as many as 380 soccer games across Europe had been involved in a match-fixing inquiry.
"I can just tell you a personal story," he told. "In Montreal (where WADA is based) I was told that if I wanted steroids I should just go along to the local gym and the guy in the corner dishing them out. Now the people who are receiving these drugs are not elite athletes.
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