Tokyo Sports Minister Teru Fukui (left in photo) and Governor Naoki Inose (second from right) are leading a effort that promises a model Olympic Games with the world’s strictest anti-doping rules if it wins the right to host the 2020 edition. Exacting testing in top-notch laboratories combined with strong social disapproval of chemical enhancements give Japan a leading edge in the race to stamp out doping in sport, advocates say.
Japan’s record with doping is admirable, say sport insiders.
The IOC meets in Buenos Aires in September to decide which of the three shortlisted cities — Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid — will play host to thousand of athletes for the 2020 summer Games.
Tokyo has received widespread praise for a bid that promises a highly compact and environmentally friendly games in a city with an already well-developed infrastructure.
Growing public support for the project is also helping, making Tokyo the bookies’ favourite.
It is seen as ready to trounce Madrid, where the expense of hosting one of the biggest sporting jamborees on the planet is worrying citizens already groaning under the weight of austerity measures.
Commentators say Istanbul had been doing well, pushing its status as a bridge between Europe and Asia, but recent disturbances in which riot police fired teargas against demonstrators will have given some IOC members pause for thought.
WADA figures show that more than 100 athletes were caught for doping violations in the run-up to and during last year’s London Olympics. Tokyo will be looking to better that.
The IOC brings with it a formidable anti-doping apparatus, which its medical director, Richard Budgett, said would be augmented by a national system.
He said the aim of holding a doping-free Olympics was a noble one.
According to the Japan Anti-Doping Agency (JADA), only 40 cases of doped athletes have been discovered in Japan since 2007. The US Anti-Doping Agency website, meanwhile, shows there were 37 doping violations in the US in 2012 alone.
Atsuko Okamoto, a researcher at Waseda University in Tokyo, agrees.
In society at large, penalties for drug possession are stiff, and can include jail for even the possession of small amounts of marijuana.
But an avowal to make the Games as free from drugs as possible, he says, is a great ambition.
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