There is no problem if you don’t go looking for it! This could be FINA’s latest catch-phrase.

At the current FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation) World Swimming Championships in Melbourne there is no blood testing for drugs. Why not? They have had seven years to include them in their repertoire since they were first carried out at the Sydney 2000 Games. Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun newspaper reported that blood tests, which detect human growth hormone, would not be conducted in Melbourne because they were apparently too expensive. Instead, only urine tests would be carried out.

"We never test for blood during competition and that's standard across a range of sports," FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu was quoted as saying. "We are extremely happy with our testing programme and we've been extremely pro-active in increasing testing procedures. It's very rare we have a problem." Only 300 drug tests (urine) are being carried out at the championships.

But to think that growth hormone is the only drug that blood testing could pick up is naive in the extreme. Apart from synthetic EPO and its companion Darbopoietin (blood boosters), there are many others which can only be detected by blood testing. The cheats have a free ride though these championships. They are not likely to persist using detectable blood doping drugs and it is even more naïve to think that if there is an opening, some swimmers won’t be tempted to use other blood boosters.

A new version of EPO called Dynepo, Synthetic Haemoglobins like Hemopure, RSR 13, Actovegin, PFC’s and blood transfusions, to list but a few, are all known oxygen enhancers and are not detectable in urine, only blood. And it can’t be that expensive when you consider that with the synthetic haemoglobins, one tube of blood (about 4 mls) centrifuged at high speed which separates the cells and fluid (plasma) portions of the blood is all that is needed to see if someone has used them.

Synthetic haemoglobins appear as a red fluid in comparison to the normal clear yellow. Can’t take more than five minutes and can be confirmed with more detailed tests using established equipment. This is the same procedure as would be done with the urine screening tests.