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The Report: Why Can't We Catch Drug Cheats?

Why can't we catch the athletes who dope?

08/08/2013

Why Can't We Catch Drug Cheats?

BBC Radio 4 - The Report, Why Can't We Catch Drug Cheats?

Simon Cox investigates why we can't catch the athletes who dope.

After two of the world's top sprinters tested positive for drugs, Simon Cox investigates how good we are at catching the drugs cheats.

Just a few weeks before the World Athletics Championships in Moscow, two top sprinters tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Tyson Gay is the fastest man this year over 100 metres and Asafa Powell is the former world record holder. They were the biggest scalps since Ben Johnson was stripped of his Olympic gold medal in 1988. Since then sophisticated testing programmes have been set up and systems to monitor athletes' whereabouts are in place.

In this week's Report, Simon Cox examines why so few cheating athletes are being detected. He speaks to the key figures who have drawn up the most damning assessment of the anti-doping regime and the failure of individual national bodies to properly address the problem. And he travels to the German laboratory who developed a test for the latest banned drug which can still be bought legally in the UK.

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