IOC chief Bach urges personal approach system to fight doping abuse in sports

A special system with a personalised approach to sporting disciplines and athletes defining the exact number of doping samples to be collected is necessary to fight the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach has said.

"We think the system should have an equal distance from both shareholders - from the sports organisations as well as from the government," Bach told a news conference after an IOC Executive Board session here on Thursday, reports Tass.

"This should result in an international harmonised top-down anti-doping program under the leadership of WADA," he said.

"In this way strengthening WADA to define -- the individual programs not only per federation, not only per sport, but the discipline.

"So at the very end, every athlete in every discipline knows how many tests his competitor has to undergo before he or she can participate in the Olympic Games," the IOC president added.

Several months ago the IOC urged reformations in the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

An issue of reformations within WADA emerged after the report of agency's independent commission on the allegedly widespread doping abuse in Russia.

It led to a partial ban of the Russia's Olympians from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games and the suspension of the country from the 2016 Paralympics in Brazil.

--IANS

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