Drug culture threatens track and field's future: WADA
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WADA president John Fahey says there is suspicion amongst the public (AAP: Alan Porritt)
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has issued a dire warning to track and field athletes at the Beijing Olympics: rid your sport of drugs or risk becoming irrelevant.
The 100 metres sprint is still the most talked-about event at the Olympic Games but too often, it is for all the wrong reasons.
Looking at the list of Olympic 100m champions since 1984 reads more like a Hall of Shame than a Hall of Fame.
Five of the six men's champions have been involved with performance-enhancing drugs in one way or another and it is quickly robbing the race of its credibility.
Former Australian federal minister John Fahey, who is now the WADA president, says there is suspicion amongst the public.
"They do not have the same confidence they once had, but does that mean we can return the sport to its very essence? To the fair play concept? We must," he said.
"If we do not, then part of the world as we've known it for all of our lives is going to leave us, because the public will desert any sport in time that they are not satisfied has integrity in the way in which it operates."
The Beijing Olympics offer another chance for WADA to prove it is catching the drug cheats.
For years, every new doping test was being countered by many new drugs. WADA had to change, and Mr Fahey says it has.
"We are smarter than we used to be and we believe that as each month goes by, we are learning more and we're targeting, our investigations are becoming effective," he said.
"We're seeing results that are not based on testing."
An example of the new approach was the suspension of seven Russian women athletes under the suspicion they had switched their urine samples.
Drug testing officials became suspicious the group were being tipped off because they were always ready and waiting for the testers.
They investigated, with subsequent DNA testing proving the samples did not match and now five of the group will miss competing in Beijing.
A key part of WADA's plan for the future is now coming to fruition, with drug companies coming on board to help in the fight against new doping agents, like the endurance booster EPO.
"A molecule was made available by a pharmaceutical company to enable a profile to be developed prior to that particular EPO going on the market, the result of which, when it turned up, there was an immediate identification of it," Mr Fahey said.
Based on the 24 positives from 3,500 tests in Athens, IOC president Jacques Rogge is predicting between 30 and 40 from the 4,500 to be carried out in Beijing.
- Adapted from a story first aired on AM, August 8.
