Showing will to stop doping must come first

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the doping spotlight would scan the horizons, looking to illuminate its next target. Rugby? Football? Tennis?

All have escaped the glare to which cycling and athletics have been exposed, though occasional "scares" suggest that the perception of cycling as the dirtiest sport might be more the result of scrutiny than reality.

The idea that cycling and athletics - which attract only moderate sums of money compared to the big team sports would be the only ones affected by doping - is very naïve, and challenged by sporadic exposures.

For example, a massive police investigation in Spain in 2006 focused on the doping operations of Eufemiano Fuentes, a Spanish doctor to many professional cyclists.

Police raids discovered thousands of steroids and hundreds of blood bags (endurance athletes withdraw their own blood and re-infuse it later to gain a performance advantage).

Cycling got almost all the heat, but Fuentes himself disclosed that he had worked with footballers and tennis players.

Journalists named Barcelona and Real Madrid players as his "patients", with tennis players Rafael Nadal, David Ferrer and Juan Carlos Ferrero among those fingered.

Nothing ever stuck, with one newspaper even forced to pay a fine for using false and unverified statements. In perhaps the biggest blow to hopes of uncovering the identity of the athletes, a Spanish court ruled that the blood bags must be destroyed. That decision is currently under appeal.

Rugby, too, is coming under increased scrutiny. Recently, French investigative journalist Pierre Ballester, who was among the first journalists to openly accuse Lance Armstrong of doping, published a book called The case against rugby.

In it, he quotes the 1980s French team doctor as saying that the French players all took banned amphetamine pills before matches. Other journalists, including Ireland's Paul Kimmage, who forged their anti-doping credentials exposing cycling, have also hinted at rugby's doping problem in recent months.

Being accused of doping places the accused in an impossible situation - you cannot disprove an accusation for which there is no proof. Failing a test is one thing, though even here, many escape harsh sanction through technicalities or believable rationalisations.

But an accusation directed at an entire sport is impossible to refute, and denial only goes so far against the cynicism created by history - people will believe what they want.

Cycling and athletics have both shown that offering a defence of "I've been tested many times and never failed once" is utterly irrelevant. Armstrong used to claim 500 tests, though it was prob ably closer to 200, and he did fail some, but authorities colluded to cover up. Similarly, high-profile track dopers such as Marion Jones did not fail doping tests.

Countless examples reveal this testing "smoking gun" approach to be about as effective as a system of speeding cameras placed in neon lights visible from a distance. They may cause drivers to slow down as they approach, but they don't stop doping in an environment where clever medical support, big rewards and corrupt officials can bypass the system.

That's not to say that testing is useless. If we can do more of it, more intelligently, it's an important part of the war, but it cannot be the sole pillar on which a sport's defence rests. History has made fools of too many for this to silence accusations. Instead, authorities need to consider other methods to tackle doping.

This was all laid bare by a report into cycling last week. The Cycling Independent Reform Commission report confirmed the collusion of authorities and the relative ineffectiveness of classic anti-doping mind-sets in the 1990s and 2000s.

It revealed a depressing culture of acceptance, and called for a new approach to anti-doping - one borrowing from criminal investigation methods.

It could, and should, serve as the catalyst for novel anti-doping strategies for many other sports.

Transparency and harsher sanctions are also crucial. So if sports that doping shadows are gradually being revealed have the appetite to take on this looming problem, sending strong messages may be the only viable option. Showing the will must come before finding the way.