Germany adopts a law to better regulate the practice of high-level athletes, and to dissuade any attempt at doping.
Faced with the doping scandals which are currently shaking the world of sport, in particular that of athletics, Germany is adopting a radical approach. A new anti-doping law entered into force at the start of the year, and it promises to be particularly repressive.
Indeed, it provides for penalties of up to three years in prison for athletes found guilty of doping, or caught red-handed in possession of doping products.
Concretely, only professional athletes registered on the lists of the German anti-doping agency are concerned by these provisions. However, those who supply them with doping products may also be sentenced to ten years in prison.
More transparency
This law is the consecration of a legislative process that began last year. The German government adopted the bill in March 2015. It was then validated by the two parliamentary chambers, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, in November.
Germany has since distinguished itself as a model in the fight against doping. German athletes were the first to protest last year against the actions of the” International Association of Athletics Federations(IAAF).
A Youtube video, in which German Olympic champions Robert Harting, Julia Fischer and Kathrin Klaas appear, call on the IAAF for more transparency and greater respect for sport, by no longer putting financial interests before those of the athletes.
A report published in November shows that some of its leaders have concealed the positive results of hundreds of athletes in doping tests, in exchange for large sums of money.
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