The United States Olympic Committee (USOC), in cooperation with
United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the Major League Baseball
(MLB) and National Football League (NFL), announced on Thursday the
formation of a landmark research collaborative designed to further
curtail the use of banned and illegal substances in sport.
The Partnership for Clean Competition (PCC) will, for the first
time ever, combine the resources and expertise of many of America's
leading sports entities to underwrite meaningful and
scientifically-legitimate anti-doping research, the USOC said in a
statement.
Beginning this year, the focus of the PCC will be to fundraise
and make targeted grants in support of non-partisan and independent
scientific research to be conducted at universities and other
world-class research institutions, said the statement e-mailed to
Xinhua.
Priorities for the collaborative will include underwriting
research that addresses new methods to more cost-effectively detect
and deter the use of banned and illegal substances at every level
of sports.
As the initial Founding Partners, the USOC, USADA, MLB and NFL
have collectively committed to contribute US$10 million to this
landmark collaborative. Each Founding Partner will have one
representative on the Board of Governors, which will oversee the
research collaborative, according to the statement.
"It is vital that the major sport organizations in America work
together to combat a problem that, left unchecked, has the
potential to destroy the value and integrity of sport," said USOC
Chairman Peter Ueberroth . "In order to make greater progress in
the fight against doping, significantly more must be done in the
area of research, which is why the USOC created the Partnership for
Clean Competition."
"Ultimately, we are in a battle to protect and preserve the
benefits of sport participation for the youth of our country,"
added Ueberroth.
(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2008)