NOC OF SWITZERLAND – SWISS SAY "NO" TO DOPING
Ittigen (Berne Canton), July 18 - More than 90% of Swiss are in favour of an ongoing fight against doping and severe penalties for related violations. These are the results of a survey carried out in Switzerland at the request of Antidoping Switzerland and they show ...
... that doping is a major problem in sport and must be fought in earnest. Only 4% of respondents said they would approve the liberalisation of doping in sport.
With this survey, conducted on a sample of 1,013 people aged 15 to 74 years in the German and Romande speaking regions of the country, Antidoping Switzerland has again analysed the Swiss population's attitude towards the issue of doping in sport. The results are very clear. The Swiss want clean sport and that suitable measures be taken for the prevention of doping, as well as the institution of controls.
Of those surveyed, 90% consider doping as an important or very important problem in high performance sport. 43% are of the opinion that doping is also a problem in mass sports. 32% stated that doping is the main problem in the world of sport, followed by commercial exploitation (28%), lack of rest and overtraining (12%) and hooliganism and violence of spectators (6%).
90% feel that information in schools, sports clubs and fitness centres is the most important measure for the fight against doping, in addition to strengthened doping controls.
The respondents also consider that the responsibility for the fight against doping is mainly the coaches' (40%) as well as athletes themselves (38%). But they also believe that the federations (33%), sports physicians (19%) and other support staff such as masseurs (17%) have some responsibility.
In Switzerland, public attitude towards doping has been investigated regularly since 1995. A critical attitude towards doping grew between 1998 and 2004 but since then there has been some decline.
The percentage of people who consider that doping is a major problem in high performance sport has indeed decreased 22 points since 2004. However, today many more are in favour of tougher sanctions against athletes than in 1998 (up 30%).
(Source: eurolypmic.org)
