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Since organising dope testing for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Don Catlin has waged war against drugs in sport. His detection of the 鈥渄esigner鈥� steroid THG in 2003 exposed a scandal that is still reverberating around the sporting world. With the Tour de France mired in doping chaos and baseball鈥檚 home-run king Barry Bonds under suspicion, Catlin tells Peter Aldhous about his plan to turn drug testing on its head.

When did you discover that rogue chemists were making drugs for athletes?

The episode that really taught me what was going on was a steroid called norbolethone. In 2002, I found it in the urine of track cyclist Tammy Thomas. I found that the drug company Wyeth had a patent on it and had synthesised it 35 years before, but they had never manufactured it. Where did she get this stuff? There were only two possibilities. One, there was a scientist from Wyeth who had squirrelled away a supply. That didn鈥檛 make a lot of sense. Or there was a rogue scientist out there making it. I studied the molecule and realised that, with the right starting material, you could make it.

Then THG [tetrahydrogestrinone] came along, which was made by the same chemist. He gave it to Victor Conte of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, BALCO, who sold it to athletes. It鈥檚 the most powerful stuff around, but it鈥檚 as toxic as all hell.

What is wrong with the current system of testing?

I鈥檓 not saying it鈥檚 doomed to failure, but we are always playing catch-up. If I live another five years, another BALCO will drop into my lap. We鈥檒l develop some fancy chemistry and write some papers and get a lot of accolades, but what will we have achieved? I don鈥檛 see all the mass spectrometers and all the chemists in the world really being able to handle this. It is becoming very expensive to develop means to detect new drugs.

We鈥檝e also got to get away from the lawyers and all the legal challenges. You鈥檝e got to be insane, in a sense, to be a testing lab director, where the next positive sample could belong to somebody who can marshal huge resources to fight. I鈥檝e had lawyers on my staff and paid them a lot of money. No matter how it comes out, everybody has lost. I am asking: is there a way to induce some sort of major cultural shift?

This is where your 鈥渧olunteer programme鈥� comes in. How would it work?

As a clean athlete, you agree to its terms and conditions 鈥� if we ask you for blood or urine, you鈥檒l give it willingly. Your participation would be known. You conform, and you stay clean. If you don鈥檛, you are off the programme. If it can harbour people who are cheating, then the whole thing鈥檚 going to fall apart. So we鈥檝e got to be sure that they are clean, and there are ways of doing that.

How would testing differ from what is done today?

We would monitor a range of 鈥渂iomarkers鈥�. Take growth hormone. If your doctor feels that you might have a growth disorder, you go to a hospital and they perform a clinical assay for that hormone. It鈥檚 that same type of test that could work in this system. It鈥檚 not going to have utility in the sense that I can take that clinical test and call you guilty, because that would not pass tough legal scrutiny. But I can still monitor you, and see if your growth hormone levels are going in a strange direction.

Other biomarkers would include haematocrit 鈥� the proportion of blood occupied by red blood cells 鈥� which is boosted by the drug erythropoietin, abused by endurance athletes. In total we鈥檇 have 30 to 35 biomarkers, which we would monitor to develop a profile of normal variation for each athlete. Initially, monitoring would be fairly frequent, probably once a month. Once you see somebody鈥檚 basic pattern, then you could slow down, and drop to about 10 markers.

So what needs to be done to validate the concept?

I would start a pilot programme with about 25 average athletes. We would do a clinical trial and follow their biomarkers to see how much data you need before you can say: 鈥淭his is out of line.鈥� In the best of all worlds I would give them a dose of a performance-enhancing drug and see if I can detect it. We do that today, when we want to develop our methods.

How much might this cost, and who will pay?

I鈥檓 looking to fund four or five researchers for up to five years. So far I can probably count on pledges of $2 million. If I could be sure of those pledges and increase it a bit we could start. There are people in sport who can write cheques for that out of their back pocket. We鈥檙e talking about the professional leagues. Certainly they have problems with drugs, but I鈥檝e worked with them for years, and I believe they might just support this new concept.

And will the athletes buy into it?

This programme will work best if the ownership is taken over by athletes. We鈥檝e simply got to get them involved. Look, it鈥檚 their life. The bottom line is that they don鈥檛 want to take drugs. Some feel they have to. But others are speaking out now because there is so much garbage going on. There are enough drug-free athletes out there who love sport.

You want to avoid legal challenges, but might athletes thrown off the programme sue you for defamation?

It鈥檚 something that I鈥檓 concerned about. I am convinced that if we run the programme right, we鈥檙e not going to have people who are grousing and wanting to sue if they get booted out. The process of getting booted out is going to be slow. We may at some point have to err on the side of letting somebody who took drugs right in the middle of our programme stay in. But if we discovered them, I don鈥檛 think they鈥檙e going to do that again.

There are a number of issues that are tough, but when I balance them against where we鈥檝e been, and where we鈥檙e going, it鈥檚 got to be tried. I don鈥檛 hold this out to be a cure-all. What I鈥檓 saying is I think the time is right to try a new paradigm.

So it鈥檚 a means of reducing the prevalence of drug use, rather than solving the problem?

Yes, and a means of making life better for the athletes who don鈥檛 cheat. What other business is there where you get to the top of your profession and people say: 鈥淲ell, you must have cheated鈥�? I want them to be able to say: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 my proof that I鈥檓 clean.鈥�

Has your experience as a dope-tester made you cynical about sport?

I鈥檝e seen every grubby chapter there is to see. I鈥檝e seen a lot of drugs and a lot of people make wrong decisions about covering it up. At the 1984 Olympics there were cases covered up, no doubt about it, right under my nose. But sport is a wonderful institution. It should be preserved and protected. It is worth it.