Spain has a problem with doping in sport and the government will move quickly to bring its laws into line with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) guidelines to combat it, the country’s new sports minister said.
«Of course we have a problem with doping, there’s no secret it’s one of the hottest topics of the moment,» Jose Ignacio Wert, the minister of Education, Culture and Sport, said at a forum.
«For this reason we are going to try and approve the modifications to the anti-doping law as quickly as possible to reaffirm our commitment to this cause.
«We must comply with the world anti-doping code because it is of capital importance to the Madrid 2020 bid (for the Olympic Games).
Some of Spain’s highest-profile athletes have been implicated in doping cases in recent years, most notably Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, and there is a perception that the country does not do enough to tackle drug cheats.
Contador was stripped of one of his three Tour titles and banned for two years by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) last week, after testing positive for the banned anabolic agent clenbuterol during the 2010 cycling race.
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