Foreign baseball players in Korea to face drug testing

SEOUL, May 14 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's baseball governing body said Thursday
that foreign players in the local pro league will be subject to drug testing.
"The Korea Baseball Organization (KBO) and its anti-doping committee agreed to
begin drug tests for foreign players within the year," a high-ranking official
from the KBO said. "We will decide soon when and how the examination will be
administered."
The KBO introduced doping tests for domestic players in 2007 but exempted foreign
athletes who strongly refused to be the target of the drug screening. There are
16 foreign players in eight clubs in Korea's professional baseball league.
After U.S. pitcher Daniel Rios, who played in South Korea from 2002 to 2007 and
won the Best Player of the Year award in 2007, was ousted from the Japanese
baseball league after testing positive for banned substances last year, managers
and coaches here have demanded that the KBO expand the drug test to foreign
players.
Existing measures require urine samples be taken randomly from three athletes
from each team two times a year. Last year, no athletes tested positive, the KBO
said.
brk@yna.co.kr
(END)