SPORTS> China
Inner Mongolia stay despite positive test in National Games
By Lei Lei (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-23 10:17

JINAN, Shandong province: Inner Mongolia are not pulling out the National Games despite the fact one of their athletes, shooter Li Jie, tested positive for a banned substance.

Instead, the team has vowed to carry out further investigations and impose strict punishment on her if the case is proved to be true.

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"The Inner Mongolia delegation has always vowed to fight against doping and there is no culture of taking drugs in the delegation, so we were very surprised about Li's case," Bi Lifu, the media officer of the delegation, told China Daily. "Such individual cases don't affect the whole team, so we won't pull out the Games."

Li, 21, who finished fourth in women's 10m air pistol and 49th in the 25m pistol at the Games, tested positive for propranolol, a banned beta blocker which is used to prevent trembling. According to experts, the prescription drug is for special heart diseases and is difficult to take by mistake.

The Games' organizing committee announced yesterday that Li's shooting results had been annuled.

"The urine samples were sent for tests after the competition on Oct 18 and the results came out yesterday (Oct 21)," the deputy head of the competition committee, Sun Yuanfu, said.

Li's doping case is the second to arise at the National Games in Shandong province. Guo Linna, a rower from Henan, tested positive for the steroid 19-norandrostenedione on Oct 18 and whole Henan rowing team pulled out of the competition the next day to show "determination in the fight against doping".

Propranolol was also discovered at last year's Beijing Olympics when a DPR Korean shooter, Kim Jong-su, was stripped of a silver medal in the men's 50m pistol and a bronze in the 10m air pistol.

Taking drugs is rare in Chinese shooting and Li's case has irritated the sport's senior China officials.

"We are very furious about this positive case and we will punish her severely," said Gao Zhidan, director of China's Shooting Administrative Center. "Although there have been a few doping cases involving foreign shooters, I have never seen such a case in China. Such an action pollutes the clean atmosphere of shooting here and damages the sport's image.

"We have to investigate how she got the drug. The shooting administrative center will impose a ban on her. Any coaches and officials implicated will be punished as well."

The Inner Mongolia team also said it would mete out punishment after its investigations had been completed.

"We are investigating whether Li took the drugs purposely or was guided by her coach," said Li Zhiyou, deputy chef de mission of the Inner Mongolia team. "Before the Games opened, all officials and athletes of our team signed the anti-doping responsibility book. If the investigation proves true we will punish all the people responsible for it."