Olympics 2008

Athletes hoping for a level playing field in Beijing are going to be disappointed.

We've said it before and it bears repeating again: there will be several major sporting nations taking part at the Olympics whose athletes won't have been as rigorously drug tested as others.

Take India. It's one of the nations that isn't yet complying fully with the World Anti Doping Agency code.

I took part in a teleconference on Monday with journalists from around the world, dialling into the offices of Wada in Montreal.

Wada officials don't want to say how many or which nations are falling short of what's expected of them but in the course of conversation, India came up again - a country without any properly organised of out-of-competition testing regime, one of the pre-requisites of compliance.

That affects not only Indian athletes but also any athletes from other countries who've been training in India during the "off" season.

What it means is that athletes who would be looking to bulk up during training could theoretically do so in India with a massively reduced risk of being caught.

Wada recognises that India has been making genuine steps toward compliance, and should make the November deadline this year, but that's still three months after the Olympics.

And at both the last Olympics, and at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Indian weightlifters failed drugs tests, so it's not as though India can claim not to have had any problems.

Wada has been running an international task force charged with visiting those countries without proper testing regimes, but it's a limited resource and they've only done a fraction of the tests they'd probably like to have carried out.

Of all the weapons in the armoury of those fighting to eradicate doping, random, unannounced, out of competition testing is the most powerful available.

John Fahey, the Wada president, can say all he likes about the science getting better, and warn athletes they've got a more effective test for Human Growth Hormone ready for Beijing.

But he knows the fear of the knock at the door at any moment is what does the most to keep the would-be cheats honest.

India, and others who've had five years now to get their act together over compliance are running out of excuses, but they'll all still be making them on behalf of their athletes in Beijing.