SEX AND DRUGS RULINGS

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31596, 6 February 1968, Page 15

SEX AND DRUGS RULINGS

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copyright) GRENOBLE. The International Olympic Committee has made it clear that any girl refusing to take a sex test will be thrown out of the Olympic Games. The committee also ruled that any athletes found to

have taken drugs would automatically be barred from the Games. Prince Alexandre de Merode, of Belgium, head of an Olympic medical commission, told the committee that the most modern laboratory methods would be used to determine sex. All examinations would be carried out by means of the saliva test. “The control will be made before the Games in such a way to preserve secrecy and

avoid embarrassment,” he said.

Any athlete who refuses to take a drug test will be excluded from the Games. Prince Alexandre said that in team sports, if it could be proved that the team had benefited as a result of one member having taken a drug, then the full team would be disqualified. Every girl athlete* entered for the Winter Olympics, which will open today, had to sign a declaration on the entry form that she would take the sex test Colonel J. Westerhoff, secretary of the committee, pointed out that laboratory facilities at Grenoble were not enough to allow every woman to be tested.

“But in future Olympic Games every woman will be tested,” he said. There has been no report yet of any woman refusing to

take the test in Grenoble. Nor have there been any reports of any woman failing the sex test.

On the matter of drugs, Colonel Westerhoff explained that in such teams sports as soccer, basketball, volleyball, and water polo, a team would benefit from one member being doped. “But in gymnastics and modern ..pentathlon, where the team can no longer participate because of the disqualification of one athlete, the remainder of the team will be able to take part on an individual basis,” he said. This would mean that the team would no longer be eligible to compete for the team prize but the remaining members could try for .he individual medals. All federations have been sent the list of products which the medical commission constituted as dope.