No WADA team for AAG

The World Anti-Doping Agency's Athlete Outreach team will not be in Hyderabad during the inaugural Afro-Asian Games from October 24-November 1.

The Agency also said that the Games' organisers have not yet invited a WADA representative to the city.

"There will be no Outreach team in Hyderabad," Frederic Donze, WADA's Media Manager said from Montreal.

The Outreach team is used by the Agency to reach out to athletes at major sporting events,  providing basic information relating to inadvertent doping and food supplements.

Asked why the team is not coming to India, Donze said: "WADA had to make choices and to select one event in every region of the world this year for obvious financial reasons.

"Concerning Asia, WADA plans to go to the South-East Asian Games in Vietnam next December.

"We have contacted the organisers to know if they wanted us to send a representative to Hyderabad, but nothing has been decided so far," he said.

Donze added: "The dope testing laboratory in New Delhi will be provided with a temporary accreditation only for the duration of the Games under the supervision of the Tokyo lab.

"That means the staff from Tokyo lab will move to New Delhi for the Games and use the infrastructure and material of the New Delhi lab."

Regarding permanent accreditation for the New Delhi lab, Donze said "it will have to go through the usual process and tests, which will take time".

On payments made by India, Donze said, "WADA has received a payment from India which is the same as the 2002 contribution, which we are extremely pleased to receive. We thank them for US$ 16,125 received on September 24, 2003.

"India's contribution has increased this year and we are awaiting the rest of the payment."

The amount paid by India is only part of US$ 93,594 which it has committed to WADA along with other Asian nations who have agreed to share 20.46 per cent of the Agency's US$ 20,235,000 operating budget for this year.

Donze said this year the Asian government representatives on WADA's Foundation Board have promoted a new "share formula" and also decided to increase the number of countries who make the payments in the region from seven to 10 this year and want to expand this to 17 countries in 2004.

Japan paid an extremely high portion of the Asian region share US$ 1,502,800 in 2003. This left only US$ 567,241 to be apportioned and paid by the nine other countries in the region.