JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AFP) — Jamaica blundered in catching doping athletes, the world doping police body said yesterday, after high-profile athletes like former 100-metre sprint champion Asafa Powell tested positive for banned substances earlier this year.

“It’s quite clear the Caribbean island’s current testing is not enough”, said World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president John Fahey.

“We’ve given them significant assistance in the past. They dropped the ball.”

Seven Jamaican athletes, including Powell and two-time 200-metre Olympic champion Veronica Campbell-Brown, tested positive this year.

The WADA board will receive a report on Friday after a team visited the country in October.

“That report… contains key recommendations. They deal with governance, they deal with operations,” Fahey told a news conference at the World Conference on Doping in Sport in Johannesburg.

“We have asked the minister of sport of Jamaica to send comments by the end of this week, as well as the president of the Jamaican anti-doping commission.”

One of the recommendations was for the island to partner with another country to get its doping agencies up to scratch, said Fahey.

“We have encouraged them to enter into an international partnership. We’ve found that’s been very effective in other areas in anti-doping.”

He declined to elaborate on other recommendations.

But Fahey acknowledged “there’s a recognition in Jamaica that they have to do a whole lot better and that they have to beef up their skills set”.

World sports leaders meet over four days at the fourth anti-doping conference to decide the future of the battle against the use of banned substances.

The conference will ratify new, more stringent anti-doping rules and also fine-tune testing according to different sporting codes.