IOC supports federations to boost blood testing: Rogge

IOC president Jacques Rogge said on Friday the Olympic governing body is willing to cooperate with the international federations to reinforce blood testing.

Rogge’s comments came after IAAF’s decision to conduct blood test for all athletes during the World Championships in Daegu in an unprecedented anti-doping program.

When referring to whether the same thing will be introduced across all the sports in London Olympics, Rogge noted that “we would absolutely be willing to collaborate with the international federations” if they would like to do that.

The IAAF World Championships will be the first time that a heterogeneous population of nearly 2,000 elite athletes competing in a major sports event will be blood tested under the same optimal conditions, within the same time period.

“We’re great proponents of all this call for blood passport,” Rogge was quoted by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

“The blood passport requires frequent testing on a regular basis. We will do blood sampling for the athletes in London, but of course this is only one time in a long series of tests for which we are going to work with the international federation,” he said at a joint news conference with the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Doha are set to bid for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics after their request to hold the Games outside the desginated window if it is successful was approved here today,insidethegames.biz has been told