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Report: IOC Duped By Dopers

The International Olympic Committee does not do enough to fight drug use, which might be as high as 90 percent in some sports, according to a White House-financed study released Friday. CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod has the details.


Released one week before the Sydney Olympics, the report pointed to large sums poured into the Olympics by corporate sponsors and conflicting priorities among sports federations. It also said there was no effective policing system


The report recommends creating an international organization independent of the IOC that would be responsible for drug testing and banning substances.


The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), established after an IOC-sponsored drug summit in 1999, is led by Dick Pound, an IOC vice president. WADA is conducting the first worldwide series of pre-Olympic, out-of-competition drug tests, and the IOC recently announced plans to test at the Sydney Games for EPO, an artificial hormone believed to be the drug of choice among top-level endurance athletes.


The results of the stepped-up testing already have been felt in Sydney.


China announced this week that it was cutting 27 athletes from its squad, including a number who had failed drug tests. Athletes from Canada and the Czech Republic also were banned for drug use. An official from the Uzbekistan Olympic team was caught with EPO at the Sydney airport on Thursday.


CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports the IOC plans to test 3,000 athletes at the games. Ten thousand competitors are expected in Sydney.


White House Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey has also been critical of the IOC's approach. "I think that what we owe the athletes is a guarantee that if they don't win, the person who did competed and won with gold given talent," he says, "not because he had a better pharmacist."

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