BEIJING-
The head of the U.S. Olympic Committee called for a new global anti-doping strategy Thursday, saying more needs to be spent on research and science to beat the drug cheats.
“We have to spend a lot of money and attack the problem,” USOC chairman Peter Ueberroth said at a sports industry convention in Beijing. “The tiny bits of research we’re doing now is a joke.”
Tough sanctions for doping violators are not solving the problem, he said, and the Olympic movement should find a “higher ideal” to combat the use of performance-enhancing substances and methods.
Ueberroth said the IOC, national Olympic committees and elite sports should sign up half a dozen major medical corporations around the world to carry out research and develop inexpensive doping tests.
“We have to get way ahead of the science,” he said. “That will discourage the cheaters. They know they will get caught. We need to find a model that is very aggressive in science.”
Ueberroth said the USOC, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., has already started talking to companies about the idea.
“It’s good business for them,” he said. “Let’s assume in real research we might have spent less than $10 million, some infinitesimal amount. The cheaters are spending a lot more. We have to leap more ahead of them.”
The United States, which had a reputation of accusing other countries of doping, is now under the spotlight for its own rash of drug scandals and steroid investigations.
“Nobody should point fingers,” Ueberroth said. “Everybody has the problem.”
Ueberroth, who organized the 1984 Los Angeles Games, also said the Olympic movement needs to overhaul its system for marketing and financing the games to keep up with changes in global economic and media markets.
“The Olympic movement has changed massively,” he said. “We need to be on the razor edge of change. What’s working now won’t work any more. We need to focus on youth.”
The 1984 Olympics came at a time when the IOC was nearly bankrupt and no other cities wanted the games. Ueberroth put on the Olympics with private financing and posted a $232.5 million surplus. The IOC adopted the system, selling rights to global sponsors and television networks. But the market has flattened out.
“The model cannot stay the same,” Ueberroth said.
Chinese organizers of the 2008 Beijing Games have taken Olympic marketing to a “a whole new level,” he said, through deals with national and international companies. And the games themselves will be an unprecedented sports showcase, Ueberroth predicted.
“They’ll celebrate sport like it’s never been celebrated in the history of our globe,” he said. “It will lift the Olympic movement to a new, higher place.”
Ueberroth feels a special bond with China, which gave a huge lift to the Los Angeles Olympics by ignoring the Soviet-led boycott and sending a big team, winning the first gold medal.
China has faced criticism on human rights and political issues, but not from Ueberroth or the USOC.
“The Chinese will be criticized,” he said. “We won’t. We’re great partners, we’ll support them. I personally have a debt. They supported me a long time ago. If I can repay that, I will do everything I can to do it.”
Ueberroth came to the SportAccord conference at a time when the USOC is pushing to rebuild ties with the international sports movement, less than two weeks since Chicago was nominated by the USOC to bid for the 2016 Summer Games.
The USOC’s privileged cut of Olympic revenues is still a major bone of contention, with international federations and national Olympic bodies pushing the IOC to reduce the American allocation. Under a long-standing deal with the IOC, the USOC receives a nearly 13 percent share of U.S. TV rights fees and a 20 percent slice of global marketing revenues.
The USOC has been talking with the IOC about a new arrangement.
“We’ve said we will share more if we agree to grow the pie,” Ueberroth said. “If we hold the pie steady and shrink it, and you want to fight for little percentages here and there, that’s not going to do anybody any good. We need to work together. There’s a chance to double the pie.”
