Bolt supports idea of hair follicle testing
Print Edition
Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt has “no problem” with plans by the World Anti-Doping Agency to test the hair follicles of athletes in a bid to clamp down on drug cheats in sport.
“This is the first I’m hearing it,” the Jamaican said minutes after collecting his 5th RJR Sports Foundation National Sportsman of the Year Award late on Friday in Kingston, Jamaica.
“But I think that anyway you can crack down on drug use in sports, I have no problem with it,” added Bolt, who holds world records in the 100 and 200 meters.
Bolt’s comments came after new WADA boss Craig Reedie revealed his intention to introduce hair follicle testing to help rid sports of drug cheats.
“We test in the main blood and urine, but now we will look at different approaches, such as can we use a lock of hair,” Reedie was quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian as saying.
Bolt, the winner of six Olympic gold medals, welcomed the move. “If it’s a new rule and it’s a better way to clamp down on this, then I welcome it,” he said.
Reedie, who says a new US$10 million fund set up by the International Olympic Committee should open up new testing techniques to catch cheats, said: “This is a really exciting development and means we can look at approaches that in the past have been unaffordable.”
Meanwhile, Paul Wright, the doping control officer at the Jamaica Anti-doping Commission (JADCO) who last year noted the spate of positive tests by Jamaican athletes, including Veronica Campbell-Brown, Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, believed Reedie’s plan was a master stroke.
“Hair follicle (testing) has been advocated by France for some years now and it is good to see that this new chief of WADA has decided to put this in his armament,” Wright said.
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