WADA didn't approve World Baseball Classic drug tests--AP, 4/5/06

• AP report: 4/05/06, "WADA AT ODDS WITH IBAF OVER TESTING,"

NEW YORK -- "The World Anti-Doping Agency wasn't allowed to conduct unannounced drug tests before the World Baseball Classic and still can't determine whether the sport's governing body complied with its code.

• WADA said in a statement Tuesday that the International Baseball Federation, which was put in charge of testing by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association, allowed its out-of-competition testing agreement with WADA to expire in December and didn't renew it until after the tournament, which was played March 3-20.

"WADA's repeated requests of baseball officials to provide the details of the anti-doping policies and their implementation have been met with refusal until one week after the end of the event," WADA said. "WADA has now finally received some elements of information from IBAF, but not enough to make it possible to determine whether the WBC anti-doping activities were in conformity with the World Anti-Doping Code."

• Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball's executive vice president for labor relations, said the IBAF rather than WADA conducted unannounced tests before the tournament.

"This seems to be nothing more than a petty jurisdictional dispute among two members of the Olympic family," he said.

• Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players' association, said he never received any requests from WADA.

"Every athlete who participated in the WBC was subject to urine sampling, both before and during the WBC," he said. "And both before and during the WBC, athletes were sampled through collections by WADA-approved collectors and tests by a WADA-approved laboratory."

• WADA president Dick Pound said the dispute was with the IBAF, not with MLB and the MLBPA.

"They made their deal for the event. We're unable to find out what that deal is," he said. "The issue is whether baseball, having been booted from the 2012 Olympics, leading up to 2008 may or may not have been in compliance."

• The International Olympic Committee voted last year to kick baseball and softball off the program for the 2012 London Games, a move it reaffirmed in February.

At an IOC executive board meeting in Seoul, South Korea, IOC president Jacques Rogge reiterated Wednesday that baseball could apply in 2009 for inclusion in the 2016 Games.

• "We still have issues about doping," Rogge said. "Progress has been made but not to the level where the Olympic family would accept it."

South Korean pitcher Park Myung-hwan has been the only player organizers have identified as testing positive for a banned substance."

• From mlb.com, 4/5/06, "WADA at Odds with IBAF over Testing"

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