Thorpe calls for life bans on drug cheats

Swimming star Ian Thorpe has called for an automatic life ban for athletes caught using performance-enhancing drugs.

Swimming star Ian Thorpe has called for an automatic life ban for athletes caught using performance-enhancing drugs.

The Australian teenager said swimming's current policy of two-year suspensions was insufficient and tougher penalties were needed to clean up the sport.

"I support a lifetime ban for any substance abuse that's a specifically performace-enhancing drug," Thorpe said.

Swimming's reputation has been tarnished by a series of doping scandals in recent years.

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Thorpe has already criticised the sport’s governing body FINA for refusing to conduct blood tests at last year's world championships.

"There's an odd occassion when an athlete makes a mistake when an athlete might take a drug to help them with an illness and not know the consequences," he said.

"It's in that kind of situation that you look at a reduced ban throughout the sport but that's the only time we should be going to court and looking at how much that sentence is actually reduced."