Lorde calls for anti-doping legislation in Barbados

Bridgetown (Barbados), July 22 (IANS/CMC) Barbados National Anti-Doping Commission (NADC) chairman Adrian Lorde wants his government to speed up the passage of legislation against doping in sport.

Addressing an anti-doping forum in Bridgetown Sunday, Lorde said a Barbados bill against doping in sport has been stalled for the past seven years, reports CMC.

He said that a draft was formulated in 2006 but progress has been limited.

"We met with successive ministers of sports who requested that we update the bill because a lot of changes would have occurred in anti-doping since then and that has been the status of the bill," the Nation newspaper quoted Lorde as saying.

"I had hoped that one of the ministers of sports would have championed the bill as recently happened with Anil Roberts in Trinidad and Tobago."

Trinidad and Tobago have since joined Bermuda, Jamaica and the Bahamas as Caribbean countries with anti-doping legislation on their books.

"Barbados and the other Caribbean countries are lagging behind, and for Barbados, who would have been one of the leading lights in anti-doping in the region, it would have been embarrassing for us not to have our bill in place," said Lorde.

--IANS/CMC

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