The United States Olympic Committee (USOC), in cooperation with United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), the Major League Baseball (MLB) and National Football League (NFL), announced on Thursday the formation of a landmark research collaborative designed to further curtail the use of banned and illegal substances in sport.

 

The Partnership for Clean Competition (PCC) will, for the first time ever, combine the resources and expertise of many of America's leading sports entities to underwrite meaningful and scientifically-legitimate anti-doping research, the USOC said in a statement.

 

Beginning this year, the focus of the PCC will be to fundraise and make targeted grants in support of non-partisan and independent scientific research to be conducted at universities and other world-class research institutions, said the statement e-mailed to Xinhua.

 

Priorities for the collaborative will include underwriting research that addresses new methods to more cost-effectively detect and deter the use of banned and illegal substances at every level of sports.

 

As the initial Founding Partners, the USOC, USADA, MLB and NFL have collectively committed to contribute US$10 million to this landmark collaborative. Each Founding Partner will have one representative on the Board of Governors, which will oversee the research collaborative, according to the statement.

 

"It is vital that the major sport organizations in America work together to combat a problem that, left unchecked, has the potential to destroy the value and integrity of sport," said USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth . "In order to make greater progress in the fight against doping, significantly more must be done in the area of research, which is why the USOC created the Partnership for Clean Competition."

 

"Ultimately, we are in a battle to protect and preserve the benefits of sport participation for the youth of our country," added Ueberroth.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 11, 2008)