IOC Plans No Changes Over Drug Confessions

The International Olympic Committee has no plans to impose harsher restrictions--as far as the Games are concerned--on athletes who confess to drug use.

No discussion is even on the agenda, and any crackdown probably would deal only with future cases, IOC officials said today, while leaving open the possibility that the matter might be debated late this summer.

Even consideration of stronger penalties by the IOC itself, rather than waiting for international sports federations to act, would be a major change in policy.

It would also underscore the growing effect of Ben Johnson’s positive test for steroids at the Seoul Olympics and his acknowledgement this week of drug use extending to 1981.

“Maybe we have to change the rule for the future and will consider this in San Juan,” IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch said. The IOC holds its annual meeting in Puerto Rico in late August.

Johnson’s Suspension

Johnson was suspended for two years by the International Amateur Athletic Federation, track’s governing body. That suspension ends in September, 1990, so Johnson would be eligible for the 1992 Olympics, and the Canadian sprinter says he wants to compete.

Since Johnson testified this week at a Canadian inquiry into drugs in sports that he had been on a steroid program since 1981, calls have increased for longer-term punishment. Some critics, including fellow athletes, said Johnson should be barred for life.

Under anti-doping rules followed by the IAAF and most other federations, a life ban can be imposed only for repeat offenses. First-time use generally brings suspensions of two years or less, a two-tiered penalty system pushed by the IOC.

Despite seven years of steroid use, the only formal drug test Johnson flunked was in Seoul.

The IAAF said this week that it would consider stripping confessed drug users of world records and championships. It has made no move, however, toward longer penalties for first-time test failures.

No Immediate Action

While it awaited the conclusions of the Canadian inquiry, headed by Judge Charles Dubin, the IOC said it plans no immediate move toward restricting eligibility for the Games in drug-use cases.

“This is too new,” Michele Verdier, the IOC spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview from committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. “We, of course, are following the Dubin commission and are awaiting its results. But I know of nothing planned at the present time.”

Samaranch, interviewed in Barcelona by the Times of London, said the IOC’s medical commission, headed by Prince Alexandre de Merode of Belgium, is reviewing the situation.