Australian drug testers have announced a massive blitz on their own athletes in the lead-up to next year's Athens Olympics.
John Mendoza, chief executive of the Australian Sports Drug Agency, said Australian athletes would be subjected to the largest government-funded drug-testing programme in the nation's history.
Mendoza told a senate hearing on Wednesday that about 3,800 tests would be carried out in the next 12 months, an increase of 500 on last year.
"The bulk of those will go into the summer Olympic sports and particularly those sports where Australia has a high international ranking," Mendoza said.
"They've already been identified as priority sports areas for us."
Mendoza said athletes would be subjected to both blood and urine tests and would be tested all over the world, regardless of where they decided to train or compete.
"We have put a much greater emphasis on Olympic sports so that Australia can be confident that our athletes going into Athens are doing it under fair means," Mendoza said.
"We envisage doing more tests overseas in the next 12 months than we have in the last 12 months...given the number of Australian elite athletes who will be based or involved in Europe.
"We will use the most cost effective solution which is invariably another national anti-doping agency in the relevant vicinity."
Mendoza said that while he hoped the tests would help weed out any possible drug cheats, there was no guarantee that everyone would be caught, but he thought the increase in tests would act as a deterrent.
