The likes of Agassi have given tennis a clean chit

Mumbai: The likes of Andre Agassi and Lleyton Hewitt may have given tennis a clean chit as far as drugs are concerned. But high-profile cases involving the likes of Greg Rusedski, Petr Korda, Guillermo Canas, Marcelo Melo and Svetlana Kuznetzova have, unfortunately, cast a shadow of doubt on the game.

An ATP Tour official at the ongoing Kingfisher Airlines Open strongly affirmed the general integrity of tennis, saying: “We take great pride in the fact that most of our guys are following the rules and that we have a system in place to ensure that the rules are being followed.”

He confirmed that the ATP had a random testing programme in place at all tournaments but refused to confirm if anybody had been or would be tested here.

Robin Parisotto, a leading anti-drugs campaigner in sport and former Australian Institute of Sport scientist and principal researcher of the EPO 2000 Project, also approved of the system in place.

In an exclusive email interview with The Telegraph Parisotto, who is the author of Blood Sports — the Inside Dope on Drugs in Sport, talks about tennis and drugs, blood doping, designer drugs and the Indian scene…

The following are excerpts

Q Andre Agassi once said he felt tennis was clean thanks to the ATP Tour’s drug-testing policies. Do you believe it is so?

A Based on statistics, tennis appears to be a relatively clean sport. At least the sport can’t be accused of doing anything less than the world benchmark because it is a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) code. However, the number of tests performed in 2006 (1538 urine and 195 blood tests) could be regarded as small in a global sense. The chances of exposing cheats among many thousands of players would appear remote especially when top-line players are tested many times over.

Tennis has had some relatively big drug busts of marquee names… Do you think the tennis authorities have been rigorous in their pursuit of the cheats?

While every sport has its problems, even the best anti-doping efforts will be undermined by ingenious cheating methods and ineffective testing programmes. It appears though that tennis is one of the more pro-active sports although a few high-profile players have dragged it through the mud. Overall, though, the signs are good at the moment that drugs are not a major problem in tennis compared to most other sports.

Does blood doping exist in tennis, as Jim Courier once alleged?

I am not aware of any blood doping cases in tennis but that’s not to say that it is not possible.

Which are the main sports where drug-taking is rife?

The sports which appear most associated (and stigmatised) by drugs are weightlifting, cycling, pro-football, pro-baseball, athletics and to a lesser extent these days, swimming. What are the new designer drugs coming into vogue?

I don’t see a day when drugs in sport will ever be beaten. Soon, the cheats will have moved on to genetic doping methods. Gene doping offers a permanent fix and will be largely undetectable. An interesting dilemma will confront sport soon: a pain vaccine is at the clinical trial stage and, as sure as eggs, every man and his dog will want this stuff because it will avoid what every athlete fears — the dreaded ‘pain barrier’.

In your opinion does India figure big time in the community of drug cheats?

It is interesting that India was one of the very first nations to take a stance against drugs in sport. A Committee for Anti-Doping Measures was convened by a Dr Oza from the University of Baroda back in 1969. In contrast, Australia only introduced drug tests in time for the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane.

Regrettably, in India testing has since not kept pace, but the recent accreditation of a drug- testing laboratory in India by Wada should see efforts ramped up significantly. India has largely escaped the scourge of doping unlike many other countries such as East Germany and China, probably due to a number of reasons including limited access to the drugs in the first place.