Public Could Desert Olympics If Scandal Hits Beijing, Admits Anti-doping Chief

Two decades after Ben Johnson became the first Olympic sprint champion to be exposed as a cheat, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency has said the credibility of the Beijing games and the Olympic movement depends on Blue Riband events such as the 100m being won by clean athletes.

Johnson failed a drugs test in Seoul in 1988 and, in the 20 years since, three more Olympic sprint champions, Linford Christie, Marion Jones and Justin Gatlin, have failed drugs tests or been revealed as cheats.

Speaking on the eve of the opening ceremony in Beijing, John Fahey said the litany of failed tests and suspicion surrounding athletics and other sports had done huge damage to the Olympic movement, and warned that the public would abandon the sport if doping was considered routine.

Doubts have also been increased after seven Russian athletes were caught supplying fake urine samples to testers last week, and today three Russian walkers tested positive for EPO, including Vladimir Kanaikin, the 20km world-record holder. Professor Arne Lunqvist, the IOC member responsible for anti-doping, said he thought last week's case was an example of "systematic" doping.

"There is suspicion out there among the public and they do not have the same confidence they once had," Fahey said. "That means we must try to restore sport to its very essence of the fair play concept. We must, because the public will desert any sport in time if they are not satisfied with its integrity.

"In the Blue Riband event of athletics a number of offenders have been successful, and I hope and pray we do not have another event of that nature. For somebody to win on merit and have nothing afterwards taint it would be step one on the road."

More than 4,500 tests will be conducted during the course of the Beijing games, including around 1,000 blood tests for growth hormone and the blood booster, believed to be the primary drugs regularly abused. Testing is carried out by the local organizing committee on behalf of the IOC, but for the first time Wada will have a monitoring team on the ground to evaluate the system. They will report back at the end of the games.

The massive operation is designed to soak up the cynicism that has grown since the last games in Athens. The uncovering of the Balco laboratory, which was supplying designer steroids to sprinters including Jones and Briton Dwain Chambers, and continued evidence of EPO abuse by endurance athletes has battered the reputation of the Olympic movement. Fahey said it was vital that faith be restored.

"We have to restore faith in the events otherwise we are morally bankrupt and saying to our kids 'Fill yourselves up with a mouthful of pills if you want to succeed'. I don't want my grandchildren to succeed in sport by taking something not natural and not healthy.

"I believe we are well down that path and I hope that in two weeks we walk away from here saying these games have been a significant step to restoring confidence and integrity in sport."

Wada officials are confident that the testing regime in Beijing will be more effective as well as more comprehensive than any that has gone before. By working with pharmaceutical companies Wada has been able to develop a test for certain "third generation" EPO products. Such a test was used to catch Spanish cyclist Ricardo Ricco, who won a mountain stage of the Tour de France.

Wada also relies more on intelligence-led testing than ever before to target athletes. According to reports in Spain, the four-man national road-cycling team has been tested eight times since arriving in China, though IOC president Jacques Rogge said later he knew of no particular reason for suspicion in their case.

Fahey said he was confident that Wada and the testing authorities in Beijing were better prepared than ever before to catch cheats. "It would be naïve to think that there will not be cheats, but we are smarter than we used to be."

Rogge echoed Fahey's optimism, and said that the huge testing regime in Beijing was a vital deterrent to cheats. "Doping is to sport what criminality is to society. There are 500m people playing competitive sport and you do not have 500m saints on earth. Our duty is to reduce doping to the lowest possible level."