A senior World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) official has spoken highly of China's anti-doping efforts, saying they have been effective.

 

A total of 26 Chinese athletes have been caught using illegal substances this year ahead of the ongoing 10th National Games.

 

"I think one way it's a good news, because it shows the system works ... it shows China is serious about anti-doping work," Rune Andersen, director of WADA's Standard and Harmonization, told reporters on Saturday.

 

"If there had been zero positive results, that could be strange, " he added.

 

China has been tough on anti-doping over the past decade and enacted its anti-doping law in March last year.

 

Andersen is heading a three-man WADA inspection team at the October 12-23 National Games. They paid visits to doping-control centers for seven sports, including swimming, rowing and gymnastics.

 

"In regrads to the National Games, the doping control is meeting any international standard," said Andersen.

 

Organizers have vowed to keep the quadrennial National Games clean and run more than 1,000 urine tests, 20 percent more than at the 2001 event, where 11 athletes tested positive for drugs. So far no positive result was reported at the games.

 

(Xinhua News Agency October 16, 2005)