Asian Games - Olympic Council of Asia to analyse old results to punish dope-tainted sports

By Amlan Chakraborty

JAKARTA (Reuters) - The three sports which recorded the most doping cases in the last 12 years risk being trimmed or dropped altogether from the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) calendar, its president Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah said on Monday.

Continental powerhouse China are not competing in weightlifting at the ongoing Asian Games after a one-year suspension on the lifters following multiple doping violations.

The OCA reported 10 doping cases at last year's Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games in Ashgabat at its weekend meeting on the sidelines of its showpiece event in Indonesia.

Its executive body, Sheikh Ahmed said, has decided to analyse the doping results of the last 12 years to identify the serial offenders.

"We want to see which three games have the highest number (of doping offenders)," the Kuwaiti told reporters.

"When we know that, we'll put those under pressure. They will not be in our sports programme, or there will be fewer medals, just to make sure all federations in Asia work in the direction of clean athletes."

Like China, Kazakhstan are also serving a doping ban and are absent from the weightlifting competition in Jakarta.

"We are very keen to have clean athletes," Sheikh Ahmed said, adding that it had become major concern for the governing body.

"We are working to have the best Games with our clean athletes as much as we can. Asia is one of the continents who have a problem with clean athletes.

"It has increased (in) big number... we want to achieve our goals of having clean athletes. For that, we're working with WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency), and following their regulations..."

(Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; editing by Christian Radnedge)