Tokyo Olympics approach to performance enhancing drugs is rigorous

The US lead of making public information about those tested should be emulated by World Athletics to encourage national support for the process and provide greater attention to those athletes not being tested.

Given that the benefits of PEDs last for many weeks after their use, World Athletics could uphold the International Testing Agency’s group recommendation that up to six drug tests are performed in the six months prior to an OG, despite the average annual cost of funding an athlete in the RTP already being around $US10,500 as of 2019.

I argue this despite the International Testing Agency only beginning to test athletes heading for Tokyo on May 13, although this late start was much better than the 2016 Rio OG where over 1,900 athletes across 10 key sports were not tested in the months before in line with the previous OG practice where athletes are only tested after arriving at the games.

Of course, I am not naïve enough to suggest that the task of stopping illegal PED use is close.

The fact that top athletes continue to be caught shows that some are still willing to cheat, or at best are not prepared to concede any possible advantage to other athletes.

But to suggest that the Tokyo OG is one of the dirtiest ever is a nonsense and a blight on the recent efforts of World Athletics to encourage a cleaner sport.

I am in agreement with World Athletics President Sebastian Coe who argues that track and field competitors who are doping have a “greater chance of being caught” at the Tokyo Olympics than  previous OGs as the independent AIU is not fearful of reputation, is fearless, uses the latest technology, and is much more intelligence-led through the employment of sophisticated international investigators.