USOC Tentatively Approves Drug-Testing Plan With Soviets

In a continuing effort to disarm users of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances in sports, the U.S. Olympic Committee’s executive board Saturday conditionally approved a bilateral drug-testing agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The motion to accept the tentative agreement passed with limited opposition in a voice vote by the 86 members present at the executive board’s second meeting of the year.

Six amendments, primarily procedural, were added to the initial agreement, which was signed last February at UCLA during a meeting between representatives of the U.S. and Soviet Olympic committees.

Baaron Pittenger, USOC executive director and chairman of the delegation that negotiated with the Soviets, said he does not expect the Soviets to object to the amendments.

“All of the issues we indicated today are issues we had discussed with the Soviets earlier,” he said. “None of these provisions are going to have an impact on the final direction of the program.”

As designed, the program will allow U.S. officials to select specific Soviet athletes for testing during training with only 48 hours notice and vice versa. A U.S. doctor will be stationed at Moscow and a Soviet doctor at Los Angeles to supervise the testing process and verify the results.

Pittenger said the U.S. and Soviet delegations will meet again on Oct. 13 at Moscow to discuss the amendments and that he expects ratification of the agreement by the USOC’s executive board next February.

He also said plans to begin testing athletes in August or September may proceed on schedule despite the absence of a formal agreement.

“Those tests essentially are designed to test the testing, not the athletes,” Pittenger said.

As a prelude, two technicians from UCLA’s analytical laboratory are scheduled to leave Monday for Moscow. Donald F. Catlin, director of the UCLA laboratory, said the technicians will inspect the Soviet laboratory and offer advice if necessary to assure that it is as efficient as the one at UCLA.

That became one of the USOC’s conditions when the International Olympic Committee withdrew certification of the Moscow laboratory earlier this year because of irregularities in the testing, which are believed to have been caused by insufficient equipment maintenance. Catlin, a member of the IOC’s medical commission, said the laboratory could be re-certified in September.

Surprisingly, the efficiency of the Moscow laboratory was not one of the issues addressed by the executive board. The issues, which were advanced by a small but influential group of the sports, including track and field, swimming and basketball, primarily concerned with the due process rights of athletes.

Two of the sports in which drug use is believed to be high, track and field and cycling, already have adopted random, short-notice, out-of-competition testing. But officials from those sports will have to submit this plan to their constituencies because it is not random, allowing Soviet officials to select specific U.S. athletes for testing.

“We have to allow them to submit names,” Catlin said. “If we don’t, there’s no program. They want that external quality control.”

Ollan Cassell, executive director of The Athletics Congress, which governs track and field, said he will recommend to his executive committee next week at Houston that it vote to join the USOC-Soviet plan.

“No one is opposed to having an agreement like this with the Russians,” he said. “All the sports want to fight drugs, want to have a level playing field for all the athletes.”

The American Basketball Assn. of the USA, however, might not be able to join the program because of the recent decision by the international basketball federation to allow National Basketball Assn. players to participate internationally.

“I’m not sure we would be able to ask Magic Johnson to submit to a drug test with only 48 hours notice,” said Bill Wall, executive director of the ABAUSA. He said those details would have to be negotiated with the NBA and the NBA Players’ Assn.

Pittenger said there also is a question about the jurisdiction of the USOC over athletes who have eligibility remaining in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.

“The Soviets obviously have much greater authority to speak for their sports community than we do ours,” he said.