PARIS, 20 October 2004 — International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge says China has moved beyond the belief that athletes must use performance enhancing substances to challenge for world honors.

Only six weeks after China, and its Asian rival Japan impressed in the final Olympics medals table, Rogge says that both countries have taken steps to make sure their victories are not tinged with doping.

Chinese athletes in the past have come under suspicion for their impressive performances at world and Olympic level, notably the long distance runners who were coached by Ma Junren in the early 1990s.

China’s swimmers have also fallen foul of the skeptics in the past, most notably at the 1994 world championships in Rome.

The Chinese capital of Beijing will host the Games in 2008 expecting to do even better than their 63 medals, including 32 gold, which left them in second place behind the United States after the Athens Olympics.

Athens proved a benchmark for the experts in the fight against doping, and Rogge believes that China is now towing the line.

“There was a period, notably at the world athletics championships in Stuttgart in 1993 when the athletes under Ma Junren were not playing fairly. It was the same for their swimmers at the Rome world championships in 1994,” he said.

“But the Chinese sports authorities, it must be recognized, understood ten years ago that there was no future in that (doping) strategy.

“They took very restrictive measures. Every year a significant number of athletes are punished. There are no longer any compromises.”

And Rogge expects the 2008 hosts to go one better. “China is doing really well in a lot of sports that are new to them,” he added.

Japan, too, impressed at the Athens Games, finishing fifth with a total of 37 medals including 16 gold.

While Japan has managed to avoid the kind of controversy which Chinese sport has attracted over the past decade, Rogge feels that credit must be given for their professional approach.

“I know the kind of preparation that most of the Asian countries undertake,” Rogge told Le Journal de Dimanche.