China push anti-doping education to campus

China has launched an anti-doping education program that covers university students and senior high school students about to take sport tests to enter higher education.

The program includes adding anti-doping lessons to university curriculum and giving lectures to university applicants with sport specialty.

China's anti-doping head Jiang Zhixue has always considred education should be the foremost measure to prevent doping among under-age athletes.

"Education always comes first to keep young people away from doping," he said after lecturers from China Anti-Doping Agency gave a lecture to students from Qingdao University of Science and Technology who boast of a national champion soccer team.

Team member Yu Baiheng said he learned a lot from the lecture.

"I had thought doping had nothing to do with me except reading some doping news from the media," said the junior student. "Now I know I need to be much more alert when I take medicine or eat outside."

Chinese universities will lower the bar for senior high school students good as sports as long as they can pass certain sport tests. It is estimated that about 200,000 students each year are recruited by univeristies and colleges after they pass the tests.

The best among them include China's leading sprinter Zhang Peimeng and 2011 IAAF World Challenge high jump winner Wang Yu.

It has been a decade long attempt for China to folster athletes without interrupting their education.

In China's traditional state-run sport system, athletes start to focus on training since a very early age and their education received at sports school are close to nothing.

As a result, those who fail to climb to the top will find it very difficult to lead a decent life without proper education once they quit sport career. Endi