Posted December. 17, 2003 22:49,
From next year, doping tests conducted by the National Athletic Competition and Kids` Athletic Competition will be remarkably intensified. Also, doping tests for high ranked players at various tournaments or players with sharp performance improvements will be carried out without any prior notice.
The Ministry of Culture & Tourism announced the sports doping prevention plans which outlined increasing test numbers and test subjects for drug testing during national scale tournaments and national player selecting matches on December 17. It also made public ordinary time testing with no advance notice. With these measures, 210 players from 35 sports in National Athletic Competition and 90 players from nine sports in Kids` Athletic Competition will take doping tests next year.
Ordinary time testing also will be conducted on about 200 players from 11 sports including track & field, swimming, weightlifting, and bodybuilding. The number of players to be tested will be increased every year to 800 players in 2007.
Korea Sports Council (KSC) has already conducted doping tests on 107 players from 11 sports at the Jeonju Competition this year and has discovered three players testing positive. Currently, doping tests for 253 players from 22 sports is ongoing as part of the preparation for the Athens Olympics. KSC plans to augment the numbers up to 1,000 next year.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture & Tourism has decided on a policy to discuss with the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO), Korean Basketball League (KBL) and Korea Professional Football League, and other leagues in a bid to conduct doping tests on professional sports from 2005.