Sporting Digest: Drugs in sport

After 31 Chinese athletes failed tests for banned drugs in 1994, a draft "physical culture law" has been presented to the National People's Congress in Peking that will formally ban the use of drugs. National team members who test positive for drugs will be subject to legal punishments in addition to the disciplinary actions ordered by their sports federations. It also establishes procedures for the transition of China's sports associations from direct administrative control to modern independent management.

Aham Okeke, of Norway, one of Europe's leading sprinters, was provisionally banned yesterday for two months after a disciplinary panel found that he illegally used the hormone testosterone. A final ruling on the length of the expulsion has been postponed until his appeal against a previous charge is settled. The Norwegian Sports Federation has demanded that Okeke be banned for five years after he tested positive in the United States on 5 December - the second time in six months that he tested positive for a forbidden substance.