Olympic organizers have imposed strict anti-doping measures on athletes competing in Beijing but one expert warns the problem is nowhere close to being fixed.
In total, officials with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) say between 4,500 to 5,000 doping tests will have been conducted by the end of the Games -- up from the 3,600 at the 2004 Games in Athens.
But Victor Conte, the man behind the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) scandal that provided professional athletes with undetectable performance-enhancing drugs, says the IOC's statement is all propaganda.
"All these athletes have to do is taper off for a short period of time before they set foot into the Olympic Village and they will test negative and they know that," Conte told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from California.
Conte believes government agencies' efforts in monitoring athletes has helped -- but not enough.
"I still believe that the use of performance enhancing drugs at the elite level of sport -- professional as well as Olympic -- is rampant," he said.
His opinion is in stark opposition to that held by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
In a press release Thursday, WADA president John Fahey said "the spate of doping cases and investigations in the lead-up to the Games and the commitment of the IOC to protect the integrity of its event are just some indications that the worldwide fight against doping in sport has made a significant leap forward."
He said a lot of progress has been made since the introduction of WADA's World Anti-Doping Code four years ago.
Focus on Caribbean
But Conte says the situation is not as progressive as officials want the public to believe.
Even "out-of-competition" testing -- tests that mainly take place between competitions -- are flawed because athletes can take drugs during the off-season, he says.
In the U.S., athletes are subject to tests from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).
But, in many Caribbean countries -- including track-and-field dominant Jamaica -- only the IAAF has been responsible for testing athletes, says Conte.
"It's not an accident that these athletes are coming from countries that do not have an independent anti-doping federation in place," he said.
"Maybe they are very rarely tested during the off-season (October to December) but it's surely not adequate."
IAAF's anti-doping communications manager Chris Butler said his organization does not give out exact figures on testing.
Still, in an email to CTV.ca, Butler said there is significant testing done all year long, including the off-season.
"I would say that those athletes are tested comparatively to countries in any country with a national anti-doping organization (NADO) or often more," said Butler. "This is because of the emphasis the IAAF places in testing in non-NADO countries."
Earlier this month, Jamaica's government passed legislation to create an independent body, the Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO), to test athletes.
"We'll be doing in-competition testing, out-of competition testing and target testing," JADCO's director of communications Garfield Ellis told CTV.ca in a phone interview from Jamaica.
Ellis said before JADCO, IAAF officials often travelled to Jamaica to test athletes throughout the year. He, too, was unable to provide specific data on how often athletes were tested during the off-season.
"They came pretty often," he said. "I can't exactly say how often, I can't put a number on it."
Although Conte acknowledges he has no physical proof, he says Jamaica's strong showing at the Olympics has been eyebrow-raising.
As of Friday, Jamaica -- with a total population of 2.8 million people -- had six gold, three silver and one bronze medal. All of the medals were won in track events.
Conte said the improvements being made by some Jamaican athletes compared to just one year ago have been "very significant."
If they had been "subjected to adequate off-season testing it would make the results more believable," he said.
David Howman, director general of WADA, takes a different approach to the wins made by Jamaica in Beijing.
"Perhaps they're making gains because at last the playing field is level," Howman told CTV.ca in a phone interview from Montreal.
"There's no systematic doping program like there was in the East Germany era, there are no cheats from the United States such as Marion Jones.
"Perhaps that means that the smaller countries that would otherwise be overwhelmed in terms of finance are able to perform."
Howman said he was confident that "there hasn't been a void" with regards to testing in Jamaica.
Conte disagrees.
He says he told former WADA chairman Dick Pound last December to send testers to Jamaica. But Pound stepped down shortly after the meeting and, since then, not much has been done about his recommendations.
"It's like having the knowledge that the fish will be biting from October until December and then the anti-doping testers decide to reel in their hook-and-line, lean their fishing pole on a tree, put on a straw hat, and take a nap," he said.
