Hamburg - Sport must overcome its desire for records in order to fight doping more efficiently, German Olympic supremo Thomas Bach said. Bach said in an interview with Germany's Die Zeit weekly, made available ahead of Thursday's publication, that this change of attitude was required to match the scientific efforts made to catch cheats.
"We have the technical instruments to fight doping but no change of attitude. Too many people think in the category of records. We must return to the basics of sport, the fair and clean competition should be all that counts.
"In this respect we would be well advised to change the presentation of sports. The world record doesn't have to be shown in every competition. In swimming the red line marking the world record should not be shown in front of the swimmers," he said.
Bach, the head of Germany's Olympic Committee and a vice president of the International Olympic Committee, said he believed that 90 per cent of the athletes are clean.
"There are one to two percent positive tests in Olympic sports due to the tight control mechanism. Now you tell me: the unknown cases! That's a killer argument. But if I estimate tehm very generously at five times higher (than the positive cases), then you still have 90 per cent clean athletes," he said.
Bach said that the current stage with police raids and athletes standing trial will have a deterring effect along with the revised World Anti-Doping Code and its harsher sanctions.
"I have the firm belief that you can clean up sports with the new methods. Sport and states must co-operate even closer. But you have to stay realistic: as long as humans are in competition there will always be some who want to gain an advantage with unlawful means," he said.
