ATLANTA -- Monaco's Prince Albert, the only athlete on the 101-member International Olympic Committee, called yesterday for a lifetime ban for athletes who test positive for banned substances.
The prince, a bobsledder who competed in the 1988, 1992 and 1994 Winter Games and who is vice chairman of the IOC's athletes commission, also admonished the IOC over its efforts at doping control, saying, "We don't need so many parties; we should have more drug tests."
His remarks came on the same day that FINA, swimming's world governing body, announced the two-year suspensions of five more swimmers who tested positive for dehydrotestosterone, a performance-enhancing steroid, at the Asian Games this past October in Hiroshima, Japan.
Eleven Chinese athletes, including seven swimmers, have now been suspended for two years for testing positive before or during the Asian Games. Three of those swimmers -- Lu Bin, Yang Aihua and Zhou Guanbin -- won gold medals at the world championships in Rome in September.