SYDNEY: There may be an unprecedented 4,500 drug tests planned by the IOC at the Beijing Olympics but leading Australian anti-doping experts are suspicious of what lurks beneath the surface.

Australia will do its best to protect its predominantly-clean record at the Olympics by drug-testing 1,000 of its athletes ahead of the Games.

It has just one positive dope test returned by modern pent athlete Alex Watson to caffeine at the 1988 Seoul Games since doping controls were introduced at the 1968 Olympics.

Australia has a world-leading sports science reputation and the federal government, through the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA), invested more than one million dollars (950,000 USD) this year to ensure its Olympic team underwent rigorous anti-doping measures.

The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) is taking around 480 athletes to China and is targeting at least one test per athlete before the Games, with athletes’ blood and urine samples to be stored for eight years in another initiative.

Yet in spite of the diligence of the world’s anti-doping fighters, there is a belief that it is more of ‘doping control’ than ‘anti-doping control’, according to experts.

“In an Australian context I don’t think much has changed. Pretty well all of the Olympic athletes will be tested prior to the Games, some more than others,” Robin Parisotto said.

“It’s probably more of a risk management strategy employed by many countries to avoid athletes testing positive during the Games as much as ensuring that their athletes are clean,” he said.

“Some regard it as ‘doping control’ rather than ‘anti-doping control’,” he explained.

Parisotto was the principal scientist involved in the development of the EPO blood test implemented at the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the former manager and senior scientist at the Australian Institute of Sport.

He is skeptical of the comparative low number of positive tests and suggests it masks an under-current of illegal drug use in global sport.

“Anecdotally, it appears that the war on drugs in sport is a forlorn battle,” Parisotto said.

“However, the test data demonstrates that most of the tests are negative, giving the impression that sport is relatively clean,” he said.

“I am suspicious however as to how many of these tests are actually false-negatives’. Remember Marion Jones. In spite of admitting to steroid, GH (growth hormone) and EPO use she never tested positive in more than 160 tests,” he added.

The American golden girl of the Sydney Olympics has handed back the three gold and two bronze medals she won after admitting in a US court last year to using performance-enhancing drugs. The disgraced runner is serving six months in jail for her involvement in a cheque-fraud ruse.

The 2004 Athens Games were officially the dirtiest in history with 24 doping violations, while Greek sprinters Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterini Thanou missed a drugs test, blaming it on a motorbike accident.

“I won’t be holding my breath that Beijing will be any cleaner and, if it is, could you trust the results anyway?” Parisotto said.

Blood-doping specialist Mike Ashenden is another who remains unconvinced that the war against drugs is being won.

“It’s nonsense to say that this will be clean Games,” Ashenden said.

Ashenden has shown athletes can take regular low doses of EPO in combination with insulin growth factor or HGH.

The combination accelerates the impact of EPO but enables the user to escape detection for the smaller dose of EPO.

The Australian scientist also developed the test for blood transfusion that snared 2004 Olympic cycling gold medallist Tyler Hamilton, as well as tests for artificial blood substitutes that were first introduced at the Athens Olympics.