Chinese Get Surprise Drug Tests

Chinese female distance runners who surprised the track world with record-breaking times earlier this year were surprised at being given unannounced drug tests last week.

A team sent by track’s governing body, the International Amateur Athletic Federation, flew into northern Liaoning province to administer the tests to the women, including Wang Junxia, who set the world record for the 10,000 meters and 3,000 meters in September.

The official Xinhua News Agency, which reported the visit, did not report test results.

Xinhua also reported that 24 athletes, including a former women’s weightlifting world-record holder, tested positive for use of performance-enhancing drugs this year.

None of the female distance runners who repeatedly shattered world records were on the list issued by the Chinese Olympic Anti-drug Committee.

Their performances led to suspicion they used performance-enhancing drugs, a claim heatedly denied by the runners and their coach.

Among the athletes who tested positive during the year were Xing Fen, the weightlifter who won a gold medal at the 1990 Asian Games, and shotputter Zhou Tianhua, Xinhua said.

Tennis

Ivan Lendl, 33, about to launch another year on the tennis tour, said it could be his final season of globe-trotting if he plays poorly.

Lendl, who held the No. 1 ranking longer than anyone else--270 weeks--is not sure that will happen, although he is ending the year out of the top 10 for the first time since he was a teen-ager in 1979.

“I don’t think I belong out of the top 10 yet,” he told the New York Times.

Boris Becker’s allegations that some players on the ATP Tour are getting away with drug use is unfounded, tour officials said. An ATP statement said that “to this day, no player has been confirmed positive for the use of any substance which would have resulted in a suspension.”

A published report quoted the three-time Wimbledon champion as saying that it was a “joke” that no tennis player had been punished for drug abuse.

Horse Racing

Thoroughbred trainer Jeff Lukas, 36, who was hit by a runaway horse, remained in critical condition as doctors began intravenous feedings. Lukas contracted pneumonia this week and remains in a coma.

Doctors planned to wean Lukas from some of the medication he has been taking since the Dec. 15 accident, a spokeswoman said.