COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—America’s anti-doping agency is encouraging Olympic and non-Olympic athletes to pledge themselves to clean competition on its Web site as part of its new “My Victory” program.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency announced the program Wednesday and said it included 12 Olympic athletes, including Michael Phelps and Tyson Gay. They are the same 12 who signed up earlier this year for USADA’s new pilot drug-testing program that uses multiple blood and urine tests to establish a baseline for athletes, then compares subsequent results against the baseline.
“As athletes, we feel strongly about having a platform to demonstrate that hard work and 365-day-a-year dedication, combined with natural ability, can lead to the achievement of the Olympic dream,” Phelps said.
The Web site directs users to a page where they can “take the pledge” and resolve that the only sport they believe in is clean sport, free of cheating and doping. In an era filled with suspicions about doping in sports, USADA launched the program to give athletes a place to go on record as saying they are drug-free.
Olympic athletes involved in the program come from cycling, track and field and swimming. Besides Phelps and Gay, they are: Kristin Armstrong, Jeremiah Bishop, Sarah Hammer and Christine Thorburn in cycling; Bryan Clay, Dee Dee Trotter and Lauryn Williams in track; and Natalie Coughlin and Dara Torres in swimming.
But anyone can take the pledge, and in the few hours after the launch, USADA CEO Travis Tygart and a number of others from the agency’s offices—none of them Olympic athletes—had added their name to the list.
