UK Sport is putting together a new task force which it hopes will hit the anti-doping initiatives it has squarely on the head, drive out cheats, shore up the sport's fragile image with the public and prove to be a good opportunity for athletes, trainers and medical professionals in contact with each other to report suspected anti-doping violations according to a report in The Guardian.
John Scott, head of the United Kingdom's anti-doping authority, said that UK Sport currently attempting to develop start-up national anti-doping organisation independent of UK Sport that will place a much larger emphasis on intelligence gathering and investigation than current anti-doping measures in place.
"What we want to do is demonstrate through rigorous pre-games testing that we are doing everything that we can to prevent anyone who is cheating going to the Games," Scott stateed. "Whether it will be 100% successful we don't know but we are sending out very strong messages to discourage people."
The apparent message which will be sent out to athletes is one which sounds like it comes straight from a British spy novel.
The new agency, which will be functional before the Beijing Games begin, has a goal of having athletes keep an eye out on other athletes on the track and in the locker rooms; trainers keep a look out for irregularities in their groups which could signal one of their members breaking an anti-doping rule; and for medical staff - including trainers, doctors and anyone else who treats athletes to break out a state of what it is considering complacency and speak up when suspected drug abuse has occured.
"Tests will be planned using our intelligence-based testing approach which focuses the allocation of tests around where they have a maximum impact in terms of detection and deterrence," said Scott on the UK Sports home page (link).
"Whilst the overall aim is to test everyone at least once, obviously those in more high-risk sports or disciplines can and will be tested more often. Essentially there is no limit to the number of times we might test any individual athlete."
It all sounds good on paper to a certain degree, though there are some inherent risks involved as well as a margin of payback which must be factored in to the equation as well.
A track and field agent approached me two years ago regarding a prominent athletics group in the United States which had been notorious for what he considered breaking anti-doping rules.
Had the UK Sport inititiative been in place then, perhaps a few of the group members would have been caught earlier - and even more of them rounded up and suspended than the nearly dozen or so who ultimately were.
However, had this particular person had a bone to pick with the particular trainer or any of the athletes for whatever reason, he could have used this against the group and began submitting anonymous claims to the relevant agency to have the group investigated.
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