MLB announces HGH testing

PARADISE VALLEY, Arizona — Major League Baseball will test for human growth hormone throughout the regular season and increase efforts to detect abnormal levels of testosterone, a decision the NFL used to pressure its players.

Baseball players were subject to blood testing for HGH during spring training last year, and Thursday's agreement between management and the Major League Baseball Players Association expands that throughout the season. Those are in addition to urine tests for other performance-enhancing drugs.

Under the changes to baseball's drug agreement, the World Anti-Doping Agency laboratory in Laval, Quebec, will keep records of each player, including his baseline ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone, and will conduct Carbon Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) tests of any urine specimens that "vary materially."

"This is a proud and a great day for baseball," commissioner Bud Selig said following two days of owners' meetings. "We'll continue to be a leader in this field and do what we have to do."

The announcement came one day after steroid-tainted stars Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa failed to gain election to the Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility.

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Ex-WADA head Pound slams UCI drug testing

LOS ANGELES — Cycling's governing body set up a drug testing system that was designed to fail and allow Lance Armstrong and other riders to avoid detection, said the ex-boss of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

Doping officials knowingly ran a testing regimen that the sport's top teams circumvented and where competitors would be tipped off in advance, Richard Pound, who headed up WADA between 1999 and 2007, told AFP in an interview.

Despite alleging eight years ago that cheating was rife, his complaints to the UCI (International Cycling Union) about the sport's anti-doping measures were repeatedly ignored, Pound said.

"It is not credible that they didn't know this was going on," Pound said. "I had been complaining to UCI for years. They come in in the morning at 5.00 a.m. and do tests then go away, and riders are not chaperoned."

"The race starts at 1.00 p.m. to 2.00 p.m. in the afternoon and there are no tests prior to race to see if they are bumped up," he said, adding that after a day in the saddle, riders would be unchaperoned for an hour before being tested again.

"So then you go in and get saline solutions and other means of hiding the effects (of performance-enhancing drugs) EPO and whatever else it is."

"You have to say 'I wonder if it was designed not to be successful?' " Pound said of the system, lambasting the UCI, which is under attack in the wake of a devastating U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report on Armstrong.

The report, which was released Wednesday, detailed Armstrong's alleged use of testosterone, human growth hormone, blood doping and EPO and included sworn statements from 26 people, including 11 former teammates.

The sports agency, which had already stripped the cyclist of his seven Tour de France titles, said Armstrong orchestrated the most complex doping scheme in sports history.

"If they persist with denial then they put their whole sport in jeopardy," Pound said, noting that doping investigations may spread to the Spanish and Italian professional cycling communities, among others.

UCI president Pat McQuaid argued earlier this week that the sport "has moved on" and better tests mean riders are now much cleaner than in the previous era, in which Armstrong, now 41, competed.

"The peloton today is completely different," McQuaid said.

Pound, in reference to the USADA report, said he was dismayed by the scope and vivid details of the alleged doping practices by Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Service teammates.

"I thought it was a very thoroughly researched report with evidence sworn or otherwise," said Pound, who remains on WADA's 38-member Foundation Board.

Armstrong has always maintained that he did not use banned substances during his career, but in August he chose not to contest USADA's charges.

The Texan rider's days of sparing no expense to hire big-ticket lawyers to muzzle critics may also be coming to an end, Pound suggested.

"I don't think it is credible for Armstrong to say 'all 26 of these people are liars and cheats and axe grinders,' " the former WADA president said in reference to the sworn statements in the USADA dossier.

"I am afraid his time has just run out on that.

"What is going to be a surprise is (if) after all this, Lance persists in saying he never did it. You got to hope he will . . . admit 'I was the best of the worst.'"

Pound said cancer survivor Armstrong should also speak out against the use of performance-enhancing drugs, not just for himself but his five children.

"What are his kids going to think of him? They are going to carry around this burden," said Pound, while stating that many Armstrong supporters, especially in the United States, are still likely to dismiss the allegations.

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NBA players OK drug testing plan

NEW YORK — NBA players have agreed to additional drug testing, adding offseason screening for performance-enhancing drugs only.

Union executive director Billy Hunter sent a memo Wednesday to players detailing these and other changes of a new labor deal and recommended they ratify the agreement.

Less clear is a provision for human growth hormone testing.

According to the memo, an NBA-NBPA joint committee would study the "possibility of an HGH testing program." NBA spokesman Mike Bass, however, insisted both sides agreed to HGH blood testing, subject to the process being validated by a "neutral committee of experts."

It wasn't immediately clear who would be on that panel.

Major League Baseball and its players recently agreed to start HGH testing in spring training. The NFL's new labor contract included a provision for HGH testing as soon as this season — but only once the NFLPA approved the process. That hasn't happened, in part because the NFLPA says it needs more information about the test itself.

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