FIS reports all re-tested 2003 samples are negative for THG

FIS reports all re-tested 2003 samples are negative for THG{mosimage}Ski racers’ samples from the 2002-03 season have been randomly selected and tested for the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), according to Sarah Lewis, secretary general of the International Ski Federation (FIS).

The results? Negative. “FIS has just been advised by WADA (the World-Anti Doping Agency) that a re-analysis of a number of randomly-selected samples has been completed and all results were negative,” Lewis wrote to Ski Racing via e-mail on December 11.

The test results from last season corroborate officials’ belief that THG was either unavailable or unfavorable to ski-racing drug cheats; the steroid, which adds muscle mass, was first discovered in drug samples last summer.

Still pending is the testing of 300 samples from the Salt Lake Olympic Games-which may be the last Olympics on American soil, if some anti-doping advocates have their way. The U.S. is delinquent in its payments to WADA, and the agency has repeatedly pressured both national representatives and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to take action. Last month, decrying recent White House funding cuts to WADA and inadequate penalties by some American sports leagues, WADA chief Dick Pound called for the IOC to ban international competitions from the U.S.

“If Jacques Rogge goes around to all the federations and says, ‘Don’t have any events in the United States,’ and turns them into a pariah,” Pound told Reuters, “hopefully that will get attention from Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Also last month, Bill Martin, acting president of the U.S. Olympic Committee, wrote a letter to Rogge, assuring the IOC president that the U.S. government would pony up the rest of its $800,000 payment to WADA in the next 60 to 90 days. “Please be assured that this matter should in no way become a barrier to the NYC 2012 Olympic bid effort,” he wrote.

But after its Executive Board meeting held in early December, the IOC announced that countries that have not paid their WADA dues could be barred from hosting future Olympic Games, and that it will consider withholding Olympic accreditation for delinquent nations. “We applaud the IOC for taking these steps,” says Pound, whose agency will no longer allow 11th-hour payments or promises — beginning in 2004, parties will have until June 30 to pay their yearly dues.