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More than 30 athletes banned from Vancouver Games: WADA

12 February 2010 00:07 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. More than 30 athletes who have violated anti-doping rules will not be at the Vancouver Olympics, proving the fight against doping is ensuring cleaner Games, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said on Thursday, APA reports citing Reuters.

The athletes who have been banned were caught in the months leading up to the February 12-28 Olympics and the results are unrelated to testing done in the days before the start of the Games, WADA chief John Fahey said. "More than 30 athletes have been prevented from competing in the Vancouver Olympics for violating anti-doping rules," Fahey told reporters, without providing more details.

"What this tells me is the approach around the world is to ensure they (teams) are not embarrassed by cheats representing their nations at the Olympics."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA have upped their pre-competition testing before Games in a bid to root out cheats and ensure a level playing field for athletes.

More than 70 athletes were prevented from competing in the Beijing 2008 Olympics as doping testers increased checks in the months running up to those Games.
Fahey said the 30 cases, which he refused to name, were all registered in the past months.

"I would say several months in obviously more than one sport and more than one country," he said. "What has occurred is that we are getting better. We are getting better as time goes by and we are going to continue improving," he said.

Many of them are known, however, with domestic anti-doping agencies naming them in the past months.