Doping is an industry, says honorary life president of FINA

Doping is an industry, says honorary life president of FINA

Doha: Doping is an industry which is one step ahead of the anti-doping and there is a permanent war between fair play and doping, says Mustapha Larfaoui, honorary Life President of Internationale Swimming Federation (FINA)

Larfaoui doubts whether sports will win the fight against doping.

 “Sorry to say that, but I am not optimistic. There is a permanent war between fair play and the doping. We will be winning some of the battles, but we will be losing the war. The problem is that there is an industry which produces and traffics all these prohibited substances and unfortunately doping is always one step ahead of the anti-doping.”

The Algerian who has served as FINA president for 21 days lamented that lack of swimming competitions in the Arab world was having its effect the swimmers.

“I think it is medium-average. Not very high, but not that low, as it used to be few years ago. There are two or three attractive athletes, but the rest of them must work much harder to have success and recognition. The problem is that the Arab athletes do not take part in many international competitions and miss the opportunity to get experience and improve their records. This lack of competition is why they remain stagnant.”

Larfaoui said that ace swimmer and Olympic gold medalist  Oussama Mellouli will hopefully repeat his gold winning feat at this year's Olympics in London.

“He is a great swimmer, no doubt. He worked hard for many years and reached the top. He is an Olympic gold medalist, world champion, a very successful athlete. I wish him to repeat it next year at the London Olympics, but it will not be easy for him. He is not old, but there are always surprising young athletes and that makes sport more interesting.”

The Algerian is happy for everything he have done for aquatics in his 21-year presidency at FINA from 1988-2009.

“It is a long life there. I was lucky to have open-minded people around me, including my good friend Julio Maglione from Uruguay, who took the baton. Teamwork is the key to success. I have many of unforgettable memories and I am proud because FINA has five different sports in the Olympic programme, which are swimming, water polo, diving, synchronised swimming and open water swimming. We also managed to explore our sports worldwide and we have 200 national federations’ countries as members.”

During his tenure he had seen some of the great athletes he said:  “It is difficult to say who is the greatest athletes I have seen through those years. All five sports had and will always have outstanding athletes who become role models for the young kids.”

Larfaoui welcomed Ian Thorpe’s decision to make a comeback and said records are meant to be broken and he hoped that one day someone will win nine gold medals at the Olympics.

“I was surprised when he quit, but I think he is doing well to return and compete again.”

 “It was a big deal, but I was expecting him to achieve it. He works hard and is dedicated to swimming. It’s all about emulation and timing. He had an early ambition to break the record of Mark Spitz and finally did it. But you know something? Any record in the world is set in order to be broken. I don’t know who, when, where and how, but somebody, sometime, somehow, somewhere will get nine golds,” Karfaoui said in reference to the eight gold medals won by Michael Phelps of USA at the Beijing Olympics.