Sport: Anti-doping Debate

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Sport: Anti-doping

Lord Moynihan Excerpts
Monday 23rd May 2016

(7 years, 11 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Earl of Courtown Portrait The Earl of Courtown
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My Lords, under the existing rules, a ban lasts for four years, which takes athletes out of an Olympic cycle. However, the main point here is that those who cheat, and the national bodies that are found to have cheated and not to have abided by the code of governance, will lose their funding.

Lord Moynihan Portrait Lord Moynihan (Con)
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My Lords, given that for some 30 years successive Governments have been seriously considering introducing legislation to tackle the scourge of doping in sport, does the Minister agree that we should follow the example of the Italians, the Dutch, the Australians, the Belgians and, earlier this year, the German Government, all of whom have introduced legislation to protect clean athletes against those who knowingly take performance-enhancing drugs to defraud their fellow athletes out of selection, medal prospects and, in many cases, their careers?