Løfshus wants a doping police – not recommended
Norwegian sports profiles want police officers as a central element in the doping hunt at the elite level in Norway. That may be a long wait.
“I believe that one possible direction is to allocate dedicated police resources to anti-doping work. In the bigger picture, it is important to review which instruments you have at your disposal,” Chairwoman of the Board of Antidoping Norway (ADNO), Thorhild Widvey, states.
Such a solution is not underway, according to the Norwegian Police Directorate (POD).
“As we consider it today, dedicated doping police is not a recommended measure. It is expected that the police’s tasks will be solved within the established framework for cooperation in the police districts and the local communities. The police must contribute to crime prevention cooperation so that we can be better equipped to implement preventive measures. This requires long-term work between public, private and voluntary actors where everyone is working for clean sport at all levels,” Section Manager of POD, Harald Bøhler, tells NTB.
“The images we viewed from Seefeld were shocking and diminished part of the joy over the fantastic results from our athletes at the World Championships. The doping disclosure of Max Hauke is burnt into the retinas of most of us,” Widvey mentioned at a recent sports seminar.
She referred to the images of Austrian Hauke where he stuck a needle into his arm in the middle of a blood transfer in a hotel in Seefeld.
Pivotal
Vidar Løfshus is on outgoing contract as Norwegian cross-country skiing coach. He believes it would be very useful with a kind of doping police.
“I don’t want to say that it is the pivotal solution, but it can be part of it. For me, it is a matter of fight for resources just as elsewhere in society and the anti-doping work. Using the police as a small part of the scare propaganda is an important aspect, as well,” Løfshus tells NTB.
It was during a recent seminar under the auspices of Antidoping Norway that the police debate gained renewed momentum.
The background was partly the role of the police in the Seefeld scandal, where several practitioners, coaches and health professionals were arrested in Austria, Germany and Estonia for blood doping.
Worst
The Norwegian cross-country profile, Trond Nystad, used strong words to describe how significant the anti-doping attitude is in Norwegian cross-country skiing.
“When I grew up it was bad to kill your mother, but even worse to use doping,” he exaggerates.
Nystad was the cross-country coordinator for Austria when the doping case broke in Seefeld. Two of Nystad’s athletes (Hauke and Dominik Baldauf) were exposed.
Nystad chose to terminate his engagement with the Austrian skiing federation then and there.
© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today
 |
|
|
|
|
