WADA looks to governments to help fight drugs

By Steve Keating

MONTREAL (Reuters) - A victory anti-doping crusaders once believed impossible is now within reach with the help of powerful new allies as the war on performance-enhancing drugs in sport moves on to new fronts.

When the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was launched 10 years ago on November 10, the sporting landscape was being bombarded by doping scandals with few weapons available to combat increasingly brazen drug cheats.

As WADA prepares to move into a second decade spearheading the fight against drugs in sport, the agency has compiled an impressive list of victories and built a formidable arsenal capable of attacking cheats from every angle.

"I guess it depends how you define a win," Dick Pound, WADA chief from 1999 to 2007, told Reuters. "There will always be cheaters.

"But the gap which maybe used to be a year or two years is now down to maybe something in the weeks. Our science is as good as theirs.

"I think you can say you've won the fight against doping in sport if you've persuaded 99.9 percent of the people not to do it because it's the wrong thing to do, it's dangerous or that they're going to get caught.

"Then you can say to that 99.9 percent that those who cheat we will catch them.

"We have the will and we have the means to catch them and we'll have sanctions that will take them out of your hair once we do catch them. It is winnable if everybody stays focused on it."