The Chinese Olympic Committee's Anti-doping Commission has been
awarded the ISO 9001:2000 Certificate, a world-wide standard for
management of quality services.
The award marks a major breakthrough in China's efforts to
prevent doping.
"The award of the certificate, which makes China one of the few
countries in the world to receive that honor, indicates the level
of doping control has entered a new era in this country," said Li
Furong, vice minister of the State General Administration of Sports
and director of the China Anti-doping Commission.
The commission started to establish the system in March 2001 and
on August 1, 2003 the doping control system was officially put into
practice.
The system for doping control, the establishment of which was a
joint effort with the Norway Anti-doping Organization, is based
upon the internationally recognized ISO 9001 standard and the
International Standard for Doping Control, which is the most
comprehensive standard for planning and conducting doping
controls.
It includes doping control, supports, and quality
management.
"The certificate award shows that China's doping management is
certified in compliance with international standards, together with
its doping testing system, which has already been under the global
standard for a long time," said Shi Kangcheng, director of China
Anti-doping Office. "Our drug testing lab has passed the
International Olympic Committee (IOC) A level examination for 15
successive years."
According to Shi, the qualified doping control system will avoid
testing mistakes such as those in samples collected from female
weightlifter Shang Shichun.
Shang, who took the gold medal in the 75-kilo class at last
year's world championships in Vancouver, failed a drug test
afterwards but pleaded innocence because of mistakes in the
sampling process.
"The certificate for our doping control system ensures a fair
and healthy environment for athletes to compete in, qualifies China
for shouldering international doping control tasks, and prepares
China for 2008 Beijing Olympics technically," said Shi.
Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Organizing Committee
for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG), has also expressed
the determination of BOCOG in the anti-doping field.
According to Jiang, the BOCOG will do more work, such as
cooperating with the IOC to strengthen training on anti-doping,
sending senior supervisors to the Athens Olympics in August to gain
more experience, and formulating an "Olympic Anti-doping Strategic
Plan".
"We will also initiate the '2008 Beijing Olympics Drug Testing
Program' together with Chinese Olympic Committee to ensure the
Beijing Olympics are a free of doping," said Jiang.
(China Daily April 17, 2004)