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Athletics

Call for drug whistleblowers

27/04/2006

John Scott, the head of drug-free sport for UK athletics, has called for whistleblowers to expose the drug cheats in sport.

Scott hopes that the anonymous tip off which exposed THG steroid abuse will be emulated by other competitors who want to see sport played fairly.

A whistleblower posted a syringe of the drug THG to testing laboratories which allowed the authorities to work out how to test for the drug.

Until that point dozens of athletes were using the steroid which was specially designed not to show up in the regular testing regime. Without the tip-off the drug may well have remained undetected.

Scott said: "There must be knowledge in the system. I'm convinced that people know what's going on. We're looking for whistleblowers. I would encourage people to share information that they might have.

"It's not all about the number of tests - it's about us testing effectively. We need to ensure that each test we carry out is properly targeted at those considered to be in the high-risk category."

He added; "Unfortunately some will do anything to win - but any athlete risks extreme penalties if they dope."

UK Sport has carried out almost 8,000 drug tests in 2005/06, which is the highest figure they have managed in a single year.

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