USOC Issues Call to Action

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Aug 4. THE U.S. Olympic Committee announced a National Call to Action on Thursday regarding anti-doping research and education. USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth will look to increase funds to fight doping overall.

"Frankly, anybody who cares about sports in this country has a vested interest in this outcome," Ueberroth said.

With recent positive tests by Tour de France champion Floyd Landis and world champion track star Justin Gatlin, the USOC wants to take every action necessary to eliminate doping from the sporting community.

According to the USA today, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, created in 2000, has been effective in expanding testing efforts and adjudicating doping cases more efficiently than in the past.

The USOC believes the next step it can take in the anti-doping fight is to lobby the government and other sports organizations, including the professional leagues, for more money for research and education. The USOC will give $4.1 million to USADA this year, $1.65 million of which is earmarked for research.

"USADA has made progress, but we need others to join this fight as well," USOC chief executive officer Jim Scherr said.

Ueberroth referred to numerous U.S. congressional hearings held in the last year on doping in sport.

"They've chosen to participate in hearings and being on television, those kinds of things," Ueberroth said of government officials. "It's now time to help, (to) join in finding solutions."

Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, lauded the USOC's plan to press for more involvement from professional leagues, noting that Ueberroth, as a former Major League Baseball commissioner and organizer of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, has "the kind of national status that would make people listen."

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