Private eyes on sports cheats

Investigators hired to tackle steroid use in gyms and combat trade on internet Private investigators look set to become the principal weapon in the fight to catch sport's drug cheats.

Drug Free Sport NZ has employed Prestige Risk Management, of Auckland, to follow tips about suspected drugs cheating in New Zealand sport.

However, Drug Free Sport NZ chief executive Graeme Steel said it was inevitable the investigations would become more pro-active.

That could involve putting investigators into gyms or on to internet chat forums, where information on procuring and using banned substances was freely available.

This will follow the example of Asada, Australia's anti-doping authority, which has significantly cut costly random drugs testing in favour of employing investigators.

It is considered the benchmark of effectiveness in catching cheats.

Mr Steel said that in recent years, the big doping cases had resulted from investigations. "You think of 'Balco', you think of 'Puerto'," he said, referring to operations that netted former sprint recordholders Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones and implicated Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich.

"They've been blown apart by good investigation work allied to good testing. I have no doubt that as we go forward, that will become a bigger and bigger part of what we do."

Unlike Australia, Drug Free Sport NZ's budget is 70 per cent weighted to drugs testing.

"We won't move away from drugs testing but ... our testing needs to be more focused," said Mr Steel, who has spent the past two days hosting the world's top anti-doping experts in Auckland.

His organisation has developed information-sharing relationships with police, Customs and Medsafe.

This reaped rewards last year when four Indian powerlifters were caught trying to bring ban steroids into New Zealand for a pre-Olympic event.

"Customs is probably the key [relationship]," Mr Steel said. "They have had some success in identifying drug use that the testing programme was not revealing."

The benefit of an investigation as opposed to a positive drugs test was huge, Mr Steel said.

"If you run a test and an athlete has a banned substance, well, you've got an athlete. If they just say, 'Well, you've got me', and shut up, that's it.

"Through investigations you find not only the athlete, but the suppliers and the supply routes."

Prestige Risk director Phil Jones said catching drug cheats was likely to become a growth industry. "There are many things we can do in terms of packaging up evidence that will allow the authorities to take it further."