Is the current sports drug-testing regime fair?

Pound also declared that, despite London having first class testing, he "would not expect many cases at the Olympics because if you test positive here you fail not a drugs test but an IQ test".

Without accusing anyone, there may indeed be vast differences between national drug-testing regimes. While Australia leads the way with a very high rate of testing of athletes per population, the Washington Post recently reported that Jamaica's team doctor is a member of track's governing body's anti-doping commission and that Jamaica and other Caribbean islands don't have an independent anti-doping federation like the US Anti-Doping Association.

However, the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission doping control officer Paul Wright refuted claims that the country doesn't police drug use on the basis that JADCO administers tests up to five times a day for 40 weeks during the athletic season and carries out unannounced tests.

At the end of the day, it does not really matter how extensive testing is by international federations if athletes from all countries do not implement an effective random testing program at the national level. It is simply very advantageous for an athlete to stay at home in a nation with a poor random drug-testing regime to benefit from drugs with short half-lives that clear the system in a matter of a few days.

Even WADA (see Table 4) can only have a limited impact, despite its testing having become more targeted by looking more closely at changes in performance and abnormalities in previous tests.

Rich nations and major federations can also lift their game. During July 2012, the IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist admitted the organisation had been slow in only deciding only in May to retest around 100 samples from the 2004 Athens Olympic Games given that past samples could only be stored for eight years.

During December 2011, NBA players only agreed for the first time to allow offseason testing for performance-enhancing drugs from the start of the 2012-13 season, but only for a maximum of two tests each during its July-September break.

During July 2012, Australia's Matildas (female national soccer team) rightfully expressed anger at not being at the Olympics. With five North Korean players testing positive to anabolic steroids during the World Cup in July 2011, FIFA provided no drug testing during the Asian qualifying tournament where North Korea finished ahead of Australia.

And given my belief that transparency is necessary to analyse differences between national and international sporting federations, I am amazed that the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) has not published any information on the number of drug tests carried out on specific sports since 2005-06. I had to write to ASADA to ask for information on the number of tests for individual sports, as indicated by general information displayed in Table 5.

ASADA notes that ‘The above figures include the testing of both able bodied and disabled athletes in the sports listed.