China says doping a concern at grassroots level

BEIJING, Aug 29 (Reuters) Chinese officials today praised the country's anti-doping infrastructure as world-class, but conceded wiping out grassroots substance abuse remained a challenge before next year's Beijing Olympics.

Officials also promised to launch an independent agency to oversee anti-doping work within months, and flagged a crackdown on the manufacture and sale of performance-enhancing drugs on the streets and on Chinese Web sites.

Jiang Zhixue, head of the Chinese Olympic Commission Anti-Doping Commission, said local anti-doping infrastructure for testing elite athletes had ''greatly improved'' in the last 20 years, but more education was needed to prevent the spread of banned substances among young people.

Authorities last August uncovered systematic doping at two sport schools in northeastern China, unearthing hundreds of doses of EPO, testosterone and steroids. Coaches were found to have administered drugs to students as young as 15.

''At the grass-roots level, there certainly exist problems,'' Jiang told reporters at a news conference.

''We need to strengthen management and education, particularly education for students and young people.'' Measures to crack down on the sale of banned substances on local Web sites had been discussed by China's cabinet, the State Council, Jiang said.

World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound labelled China an ''exporter'' of blacklisted performance enhancing drugs during a visit last year and urged the country to crack down on illegal online vendors.

Authorities would also launch a campaign to ''cleanse local medicine markets'' in Beijing and other Olympic co-host cities of banned substances, said Yan Jianying, a legal affairs spokesman with the State Food and Drug Administration spokesman.

China has a lot of prestige invested in next year's Olympics and sports officials have been repeating the mantra that they would rather win no gold medals than have one positive test.

The pledge to ensure a fair anti-doping environment has led China to set up ''secret'' pig farms where hogs are fed using hormone-free food to protect athletes from false-positive doping tests.

Reuters TB GC2005