U.S. REPORT WILL CRITICIZE I.O.C. ON DRUGS

With the Summer Games set to open a week from today, a report financed by
the White House office of national drug policy has issued a stinging rebuke
to the International Olympic Committee as ineffectively combating the
pervasive use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The 107-page report, obtained by The New York Times and scheduled for
public release today, says the I.O.C. failed to establish a sufficiently
independent body to administer an anti-doping campaign and cites
allegations that the I.O.C. interfered with research on drug testing. The
report also says some coaches and athletes estimate as many as 80 or 90
percent of participants in some Olympic sports use performance-enhancing drugs.

"While no one in the Olympic movement seriously advocates doping by
athletes, the financial stakes for Olympic athletes, corporate sponsors,
the TV broadcast and cable industries and sports governing bodies, coupled
with the pharmacopoeia of performance-enhancing substances, the athletes'
drive to win and the absence of an effective policing mechanism create an
environment that encourages doing anything -- including doping -- to win,"
the report said.

The report was the culmination of a $1 million, two-year study conducted by
the National Commission on Sports and Substance Abuse, at Columbia
University. The study was meant to be the most comprehensive review to date
of doping in Olympic sports.

The report comes as the I.O.C. has made one notable advance in the fight
against drug use. Last week it approved a blood test in Sydney for EPO, a
drug that increases oxygen-carrying capacity and is believed to be widely
used in endurance sports. This week 27 athletes were removed from the
Chinese Olympic team, a number of whom had failed blood tests at home.

Despite this advance, however, there will be no tests in Sydney for such
drugs as human growth hormone, insulin growth factor and products that
essentially serve as artificial blood.

The intent to cheat apparently remains widespread, as evidenced here by a
customs seizure of human growth hormone from a Uzbekistan coach on
Thursday, and the banning of a Czech weight lifter and a Canadian
equestrian athlete for drug use.

"When the Games begin in Sydney, millions of children will watch every
event," Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House drug policy
office, says in a statement accompanying the report. "They'll copy the
moves of the basketball players and the strokes of the swimmers. Unless we
continue to rid the Games of doping and drugs, these children will also
take the same drugs as they see their stars cheating with."

The report notes that despite the I.O.C.'s creation of the World
Anti-Doping Agency last year, the agency has the authority only to make
recommendations to the Olympic committee. Its independence has been
questioned, in part because the agency is being headed by Dick Pound, an
I.O.C. delegate from Montreal. Pound has said he will step down next year.

"There is no independent and accountable international organization with
authority to create and administer an effective anti-doping program for
Olympic sports," the report said.

A troubling conflict of interest exists among the governing bodies that
regulate various Olympic sports, the report said. The need to promote sport
and attract corporate sponsorship often clashes with the determination to
catch cheaters, because cheating brings negative publicity and can diminish
corporate enthusiasm, the report said.

"Persistent patterns of irregularities in enforcement raises serious doubts
about the commitment of the sports' governing bodies to protect the
interest of honest athletes, the virtues of sport and the health and safety
of the competitors," the report said.

Scientists interviewed by the Commission on Sports and Substance Abuse
reported that their attempts to develop tests for banned substances "were
stymied by late decisions and a seeming lack of will at the highest levels
of the I.O.C.," the report said.

Richard Quick, coach of the American women's swim team, and others have
been critical of the I.O.C. in recent weeks, claiming that funding for
human growth hormone has been slowed, making it impossible for a test to be
ready for the Sydney Games.

The I.O.C. denied today that it was interfering with research on drug
tests. The Olympic committee pointed out that it had committed $25 million
in the next two years to fight doping, that its anti-doping agency was
conducting 2,400 out-of-competition tests this year, and that the
suspensions of about 30 athletes around the world in recent weeks were a
sign that a deterrent to cheating had been created.

"I'm not saying we've won the war on drugs, but we're close to winning the
war on EPO and we've put a fear in people who are cheating," said Franklin
Servan-Schreiber, an I.O.C. spokesman.

Noting the huge financial gains available in this age of professional
Olympic athletes, the report also accuses parents, coaches and trainers of
actively encouraging doping, or turning their heads to it, and it calls for
indifferent corporate sponsors to demand that athletes be free of drugs.

"Even nations, caught up in patriotism and national pride, often look the
other way when it comes to doping," the report said.

In making recommendations to clean up the problem of widespread drug use,
the report calls for an independent anti-doping agency that does not answer
to the I.O.C., an international research effort of $50 million to $100
million over a five-year period, more comprehensive out-of-competition
testing, more accurate labeling of dietary supplements, so-called athlete
passports that would give a public history of an athlete's doping tests and
the adoption of standardized lists and penalties for banned substances.

"For sports governing bodies, tacit approval of performance-enhancing drugs
places their credibility in jeopardy," the report said. "For society
itself, what is at stake is the integrity and meaning of sport and the
future health and ethical values of a generation of children."