SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Australian Olympic officials have demanded that U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey be banned from Sydney 2000 Games venues during his visit to the city next week, a newspaper reported Saturday.
Australian Olympics Committee president John Coates has told officials to refuse McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control, access to Olympic Park for media conferences and tours, the Weekend Australian newspaper said.McCaffrey is to arrive in Sydney on Sunday to attend a major conference on the use of drugs in sport.
Coates fears McCaffrey will use the conference to continue attacking a newly created world anti-doping agency, which is to include 16 Olympics movement representatives and 16 government representatives, the newspaper said.
The World Anti-Doping Agency or WADA, to be headed by Canadian lawyer and IOC member Dick Pound, was formally established by the International Olympic Committee in Switzerland Wednesday.
WADA is expected to begin operations early next year and should be fully operational by the Sydney Olympics in September.
McCaffrey, a former U.S. army general, has been lobbying for an alternative agency.
"As far as I'm concerned, McCaffrey may be a four-star general, but he does not even rate one star in the drugs-in-sports arena," Coates said in a letter to the premier of New South Wales state, the paper reported.
The attempt to ban McCaffrey threatens to embarrass Australia's prime minister, John Howard, who had invited him to play a key role in the conference.
Ministers and officials from 27 countries, including China, Russia and the United States, are to meet in Sydney next week for the International Summit on Drugs in Sport, at which the future of WADA is expected to be the main point of discussion. Australia Thursday welcomed the creation of an IOC-led anti-doping agency but said it must have a strong mandate on drug testing and full government involvement.