IOC chief backs plan for four-year doping bans

IOC President Jacques Rogge supports proposals to double the length of doping bans to four years as a way of keeping drug cheats out of the Olympics.

The World Anti-Doping Agency is planning to raise the penalty from two to four years for serious drug violations in the next version of the global anti-doping code, which comes up for approval next year and goes into effect in 2015.

“We are waiting for the final text but already what is on the table today is something that is heartening for us,” Rogge said on Monday at conference in Amsterdam.

Rogge said the proposal “is something that satisfies us in that it endorses increasing sanctioning for what I would call heavy doping.”

He said the change would be in line with the International Olympic Committee’s previous failed attempt to bar any athlete slapped with a ban of more than six months from competing in the subsequent Olympics.

The so-called “Osaka Rule” was thrown out last year by the Court of Arbitration for Sport on grounds that the sanction represented a second penalty for the same offense and did not comply with the WADA code.

WADA’s proposed four-year bans should serve the same purpose as the IOC rule.