bei jing

China on Thursday reaffirmed its efforts to advance strategic partnership with Pakistan as President Asif Ali Zardari met extensively with the country’s political and business leaders.

“China would like to work with Pakistan to take their substantive cooperation to a new high and benefit their peoples,” top Chinese legislator Wu Bangguo told Zardari on Thursday afternoon.

This was Zardari’s first official trip abroad since taking presidency in September.

In their hour-long talks, Wu spoke highly of the 57-year-old China-Pakistan diplomatic relations, citing political trust, economic cooperation and coordination on international issues.

Wu, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress(NPC), said the parliaments of the two countries would continue to conduct multi-tier exchanges, injecting a vitality into bilateral strategic partnership.

The International Olympic Committee will retest doping samples from the Beijing Games to check for traces of a new blood-boosting drug and other banned substances.

The move, announced Wednesday, is designed to search in particular for a performance-enhancer that was only recently detected during retesting of samples from the Tour de France.

The Beijing samples - across all sports - are being sent to the World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory in Lausanne, IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said.

”This clearly demonstrates the determination that there is zero tolerance (on doping), and that we will use all the means available to catch the cheaters,” IOC vice-president Thomas Bach of Germany told The Associated Press.

The IOC conducted more than 5,000 drug tests during the Beijing Games, including nearly 1,000 blood screenings.

IOC medical director Patrick Schamasch said officials are still considering how many and which samples to retest.

”The decision will be based on intelligence, on information we receive and many other parameters,” he told The Associated Press.

The timeframe for the testing process hasn’t been finalized.

”Once we decide how many tests, and who to test, then it will not take long,” Schamasch said. ”We’re not pushed by anyone. We will do it when we are ready.”

The IOC stores samples from the Olympics for eight years, leaving open the possibility to retest them when new detection methods are devised.

Any athletes caught by new tests can be sanctioned retrospectively and be stripped of their results and medals.

The IOC previously retested some samples from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games to look for THG, the designer steroid at the centre of the BALCO scandal. No positives were found.

The Beijing samples will be reopened and tested for CERA, a new generation of the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO. The substance boosts an athlete’s performance by increasing the number of oxygen-rich blood cells.

A new blood test used by the French Anti-Doping Agency detected CERA during retesting of samples from Tour de France riders. The original urine tests had raised suspicions but proved inconclusive.

Officials confirmed Tuesday that German rider Stefan Schumacher, and Italians Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli had tested positive for CERA at the Tour. The three riders combined to win five of the Tour’s 21 stages.

”The idea is to retest across the sports, not solely on cycling,” Moreau said. ”They will retest for all the new substances that are currently detectable, not only CERA.”

She said the tests will likely be targeted on endurance sports in which CERA would be most beneficial to athletes.

Schamasch said the IOC will test blood samples for CERA, but tests will also be carried out to detect other drugs which he declined to identify.

”We have indication of other substances,” he said.

The IOC decision was welcomed by Olympic and anti-doping officials.

”We suggest that athletes who may be tempted to cheat keep this reality in mind and we believe that retrospective testing will serve as a strong deterrent,” WADA president John Fahey said.

Michael Vesper, director general of the German Olympic Sports Union, described the move as a ”thunderbolt.”

”All undiscovered cheats will be shaking now,” he said.

Andy Parkinson, head of operations of Drug-Free Sport in Britain, said the initiative ‘’sends a great message.”

”Long gone are the days when an athlete gets a negative test after a competition and disappears with the medal forever,” he said. ”Athletes who cheat are not safe even eight years after competitions.”

Bach said Tuesday that the future of men’s road cycling in the Olympics could be threatened unless the sport cleans up its act under the aegis of the international cycling union, or UCI.

If the entire sport doesn’t pull together to improve the situation, ”then you have to consider giving men’s road cycling a pause” from Olympic participation, Bach told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

In a statement Wednesday, Moreau said, ”The IOC will continue to support the UCI - and any other international federation - as long as it is deploying meaningful and credible means and efforts to fight against doping.”

The IOC disqualified six athletes for doping during the Aug. 8-24 Beijing Games - Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska, Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov, Greek hurdler Fani Halkia, North Korean shooter Kim Jong Su, Spanish cyclist Isabel Moreno and Vietnamese gymnast Thi Ngan Thuong Do.

Three other cases are still pending. The IOC has given Belarusian hammer throwers Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan until Oct. 17 to provide more information explaining why they tested positive for testosterone. A decision is due shortly in the case of Polish canoeist Adam Seroczynski, who tested positive for clenbuterol.

Nearly one in 10 Olympians were treated for injuries at the Beijing Games, the IOC said Thursday.

More than half of the 1,055 athletes hurt had leg and foot problems and at least 100 suffered head injuries, according to figures based on medical reports from 92 of the national teams competing.

Almost three-quarters of all injuries were sustained in competition, and the most common were thigh strains and ankle sprains

Shawn Johnson has been home a grand total of four days since the Beijing Olympics, she misses her dog and cats terribly, and her schedule is so hectic she needs to look at a calendar just to be sure what day of the week it is.

She wouldn’t change her second place at the Olympics for a second.

“I’m having a lot of fun,” she said Wednesday before the latest stop on the Tour of Gymnastics Superstars. “It is hard to be away so much. I get homesick and stuff, but I don’t know. This is something I’m used to. Or getting used to. … I love my new life and everything that happened.”

Johnson went to Beijing as the reigning world champion and the favorite to win her sport’s biggest prize, the Olympic all-around title. She wound up second — to teammate Nastia Liukin, no less — but the 16-year-old showed the grace of a champion with her genuine happiness for her Olympic village roommate.

After adding another silver on the floor exercise, Johnson finally got her gold on the balance beam, the last event.

“It was the best experience of my life, and I don’t regret anything that happened or anything I did,” said Johnson, who won a third silver with the U.S. team. “I wouldn’t take anything back, I wouldn’t trade anything. And I’m not disappointed. I’m truly honored and proud of what I did and how I finished and everything that happened. Everything happens for a reason, and I was meant to do that and do exactly what I did.”

Johnson has the kind of gold-medal star power that can’t be diminished by some number on a scoreboard. The record will show she lost, but she did it graciously, without complaint or protest. That, along with that megawatt smile that helped her become one of the faces of the Olympics before they began (and Michael Phelps overshadowed everyone), could be what carries the day now that the flame is out and real life has resumed.

She led the Pledge of Allegiance at the Democratic National Convention. She’s hung out with talk-show TV’s biggest four — Oprah, David Letterman, Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres — and she made a guest appearance on “The Secret Life of The American Teenager.” She and Liukin are headlining the 40-city gymnastics tour that also includes Olympic silver medalist Jonathan Horton and Athens Olympics champion Paul Hamm, and she has fans who don’t know a somersault from a split.

She’s using her newfound fame for good causes, too. She took part in the “Frosted Pink With a Twist” benefit for cancer research for a second year and will visit the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital on Thursday morning to raise awareness for www.cancer.net, the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s patient Web site.

“We definitely hoped we would get this, because it’s a huge reward for everything we’ve worked for,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we ever thought it would actually happen, or it would become a reality, to be able to be on tour and work every single day, fly to New York four times a month.

“It’s an honor,” she added. “It’s really crazy and it’s really hectic, but it’s really fun.”

About the only thing Johnson isn’t doing these days is spending time at home. She took this semester off of school to do the tour, but plans to return when it ends in November.

“It’s definitely going to be hard to go back to school,” she said, smiling. “We’re talking about what we’re going to do and how I’m going to get the junior year caught up, maybe getting a tutor.”

Getting back in the gym is in her plans, too. Johnson went to visit her coach, Liang Chow, the last time she was home, and it wasn’t long before she was on the equipment again.

“Right now, training is really hard, because it’s so sporadic. We don’t have a set schedule,” said Johnson, who flew in from New York on Wednesday morning for the first of five shows in five cities in five nights. “After the tour, I’m planning on getting back in shape. I don’t like not feeling in my top game. I’m not used to it.

“As for competition, I’m not quite sure when or where. One day at a time,” she said. “You can’t control the future. I’m just going to let things fall into place as they happen.”

The observer team of the World Anti-Doping Agency reported the missing results in its final report on the Beijing drug-testing program.

“Once the laboratory had apparently delivered all reports to the IO (independent observer) team, it transpired that around 300 test results were missing in comparison to the doping control forms,” the WADA report said.

The group said it checked the results’ status with the IOC medical commission but, as of the report’s completion last month, the IOC had not finished processing the lab results.

The disclosure raised serious questions about the credibility of the Beijing testing, but the IOC said Thursday the matter had been cleared up.

“Regarding the ‘300 missing tests,’ it is our understanding that there has been a communication problem between the Beijing laboratory and the IO team on the results of a number of tests,” IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said in an e-mail. “The results of these tests were communicated to the IOC by the end of August. All were negative. The results have now been transmitted to the IO team.”

The observers monitored all elements of the doping control process in Beijing, where the IOC ran the biggest drug-testing program in Olympic history.

Among the observers’ key findings was that 102 of 205 countries competing in Beijing - more than half - failed to provide organizers information about their athletes’ whereabouts so they could be tested out of competition.

It is each country’s responsibility to notify testers of its athletes’ whereabouts during the Games. The countries were not reprimanded during the Games but were to receive written notification afterward.

The WADA group praised the increased number of overall tests (4,770), blood tests (969) and tests for EPO (817) and human growth hormone (471).

Six athletes were disqualified for doping offences during the Olympics, and three other cases are still pending.

The IOC plans to retest Beijing samples for traces of CERA, the new blood-boosting drug that was recently detected in the samples of four cyclists from the Tour de France.

To have mislaid one drug test result from the Beijing Olympic Games might have been regarded as a misfortune. To have lost “around 300″ could be described as carelessness in the extreme – even if, as the International Olympic Committee maintained last night, the mislaying has been strictly temporary. The case of the missing data came to light yesterday when a team of independent observers sent to the Games to oversee drug testing procedures on behalf of the World Anti-Doping Agency issued a 50-page report on their findings. The 10-strong team – chaired by Briton Sarah Lewis, secretary general of the International Ski Federation – also highlighted a “relatively low” number of athletes tested for the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) and the failure of “nearly half” of the national Olympic committees to provide information about the whereabouts of their athletes for out-of-competition testing.

Another disclosure was that the Ukrainian heptathlete Lyudmila Blonska blamed the positive test she had given for the anabolic steroid methyltestosterone on her husband and coach, Sergei Blonskyi.

In total, 4,770 drug tests were taken by the IOC’s medical commission between 27 July, 12 days before the Opening Ceremony, and 24 August, the day of the Closing Ceremony. The fact that a number of results went missing was revealed in the Report of the Independent Observers, published yesterday. “An area that left room for improvement was the administrative reporting of the [Beijing] laboratory,” the report states. “Once the laboratory had apparently delivered all reports, it transpired that around 300 test results were missing.”

An IOC spokesperson said last night that since the report had been compiled all of the missing results had been traced and that all of the tests involved were negative. Still, news that the results had gone missing will come as a concern, particularly at a time when the IOC has undertaken the task of retesting frozen Beijing samples for the new variant of EPO, Continuous Eryhropoeisis Receptor Activator (CERA). According to the independent observers, the numbers of athletes tested for EPO in Beijing “were relatively low, notably in the sports where the use of EPO has been detected”.

Their report includes detailed analyses of the cases of the 11 athletes who gave positive tests – including that of Blonska, who was stripped of the heptathlon silver medal. She was also banned for life, having tested positive in 2003 for the anabolic stanozolol and served a two-year-suspension.

The report states that Blonska: “denied intentionally taking any prohibited substance and claimed to be shocked that a prohibited drug was in her system. She testified that her husband, Sergei Blonskiy, is also her coach and that he was responsible for her training and diet. She indicated they had been having relational difficulties.”

Tall tales: Dopey excuses for drug-taking

* Dennis Mitchell US sprinter tested positive for excessive testosterone. Argued that five beers and four acts of copulation with his wife the night before the test were to blame.

* David Martinez Discus thrower tested positive for nandrolone. Spaniard blamed it on eating infected pork. In an attempt to prove his innocence, he kept a pig in his garden and injected it with the steroid. It failed to save his bacon – no traces of the drug were found in his system when he slaughtered the pig and ate it.

* Adri van der Poel Dutch cyclist tested positive for strychnine. Claimed the substance came from doped racing pigeons belonging to his father in law.

* Javier Sotomayor High jump world record holder from Cuba tested positive for cocaine in 1999. In a TV address, Fidel Castro claimed sabotage by CIA.

Nearly one in 10 Olympians were treated for injuries at the Beijing Games, the IOC said Thursday.

More than half of the 1,055 athletes hurt had leg and foot problems and at least 100 suffered head injuries, according to figures based on medical reports from 92 of the national teams competing.

Almost three-quarters of all injuries were sustained in competition, and the most common were thigh strains and ankle sprains.

The sports most dangerous to Olympians’ health were boxing, soccer, handball, field hockey, taekwondo and weightlifting. Each reported injuries to around one in seven athletes.

Four sports reported that none of its athletes lost training or competition time: flatwater canoeing, diving, sailing and synchronized swimming.

An International Olympic Committee team of medical experts recorded and analyzed injuries in detail at Beijing for the first time at an Olympics.

A detailed report will be published in a sports medical journal and distributed to all national teams.

I’ve had no normality since I got back - I love watching TV, but the only thing that I’ve really been glued to is Strictly Come Dancing. I’ve said I’m not going out on a Saturday night, I’m going to be sad and watch TV all night. Apart from anything else I haven’t been able to sit down, but it’s all been good. I’ve been able to spend a little bit of time with my boyfriend, but not as much as I’d like to be honest. Hopefully in a couple of weeks he’ll be moved in with me so we’ll get to spend more time together. I’m going straight home after Buckingham Palace and I’m up at five in the morning and back in the pool at six training.

Chris Hoy

Cycling Keirin, sprint & team sprint

It’s a whole other scale of public reaction from Sydney and Beijing. I think it has really captured the public’s imagination. So far I have not had any of the downside of being famous. I’m getting stopped in all kinds of places and everyone who has come up to me so far has been very positive, has been very friendly. I think the daftest thing to happen since I got back is having Samuel L Jackson asking me for a photograph. That was the most surreal thing in my life. It was at the national film awards and I’d presented an award. He was backstage waiting to present another award.

Andy Hodge

Rowing Coxless fours

I’m going to race in Massachusetts with my club on Sunday, Molesey boat club, who are taking over a development boat. A couple of weeks after the Olympics a couple of people came up to me in Chiswick and congratulated me. I’ve never had that before in my life and that was really special. I was walking around an old Roman site in the south of France and some guy was like, “Are you Andy Hodge?” It turned out to be a friend of a rower so it wasn’t too shocking, but anyway, I’ll take that one. The biggest change in my life since Beijing has been taking over the captaincy at Molesey.

Sarah Webb

Sailing Yngling

It has been a busy and confusing time since I got back. You don’t know what to expect when you go to the Games, and then you come back and we’ve had some fantastic opportunities. People have been so kind to us along the way and we’ve just been doing this, that and everything. Trying to catch up with friends and family is the biggest thing because we spent so long away - but you do end up rushing around quite a bit. I went to the GQ awards, which was pretty cool, but where else I have been I couldn’t tell you, which is the weird thing - that’s just how it has been. I haven’t been getting noticed more than before, I think you need the three of us [blondes in a boat] together for that.

Tim Brabants

Kayaking K-1000m

I’m going to go back to work in the hospital in December now. It was going to be October but then I won a couple of medals. Coming along the parade here I didn’t think anyone would know who I was, but there were several people shouting “Well done Tim” or “There’s that doctor kayak guy”. I’ve had some strange, weird experiences, like yesterday at Buckingham Palace, where I was having lunch with Prince Philip; then later on I had an interview with ITV and they do a soundcheck. They asked me what I had for lunch so I said, “For lunch today I had a fricassée of wild guinea fowl in Buckingham Palace”. It was quite nice having two days in a row in Buckingham Palace and I did cheekily ask if they had a room for the night.

Christine Ohuruogu

Athletics 400m

I have not had a chance of a holiday since I got back, I am going on Friday. Life has been busy. Every single day there has been something on. It is fun. I have been to loads of schools, dinners and lunches. I have met some really interesting people on the way from all walks of life, from different jobs, and it is good that you have an opportunity to meet them, to see what it is like outside of sport. People really appreciate what we have done and it is really great to know that your hard work has not gone in vain and that people recognise your efforts.

Ben Ainslie

Sailing Mixed finn

It has been a little bit more hectic than it was before the Olympics, obviously all great things. At a certain point you start to focus on your job, which for me is a sailor, and I was away last weekend competing in Bermuda [at the King Edward VII Gold Cup]. It was not Olympic sailing, but a match racing regatta, and we were third. I have been away from that arena for the last 18 months so it was good to get back into that and into racing again.