Whoooeee! Let's reminisce for a moment. Atlanta 1996. Weren't we Irish the very late supper and floor show of the last Olympics? We were the cabaret, the burlesque, the comedy revue. We were the song and dance act. Remember the days? Our Lady of the Chlorine showed up big and buffed and the world treated her like she was an oil slick, but our proud hacks sang and danced and offered comhghairdeas and tugged the world's sleeve. No, look world, look! It's Flipper! What are you trying to tell us Flipper? Go on Flipper . . ."

And then Sonia was struck down by a plague and The Artists Formerly Known as BLE strip-searched her and put her in quarantine or something, and the reliable rumours went around that she'd eaten some bad oysters at an orgy while carrying triplets for an alien.

Then Maria McMahon tested positive for cough drops and we had to spring her from pending scandal. RTE asked Frank Barrett's mother if she'd ever got a belt off him and then we all came home and had a parade in the rain and Mary Robinson told Flipper that she was a grand little girl. We realised that Sonia's Dad ("Nobody died") was the only one with any dignity left intact, but we all went back to being the happy, self-deluding, little Amish country of sport anyway. We have some ground to make up in Sydney. The good news is that we aren't the only ones. The bad news is that we probably won't bother, we'll just sit and wait. Think. What would be the sensation of this Olympic summer? Well, if on deadline day of August 2nd the Olympic movement announces that it has accepted a test for the detection of EPO, I will waltz naked on Circular Quay with Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Bah. I know, I know. Banging on and on about drugs and cheats is the surest way for a journalist to get back down to the queue in Werburgh Street from whence he came. Stern emails will come. Bring on the jokes and the merry japes! No more carping, you overgrown curmudgeon! If you don't like it don't bloody watch it! And that's just the Sports Editor.

So let's get back to the good news. What can Ireland do? The Australians, who also have some way to go before they get their leasehold back on their acre of moral high ground, are doing something about it. Last week their Sports Drug Agency launched the True Champion Passport scheme, whereby athletes can carry details of their drug tests and results. The Olympic Passport idea has tremendous merit, but of course is limited in its possibilities by the current state of testing. Even so, Ian Thorpe, the giant Australian swimmer who attracts rumours at about the same rate as Inge De Bruijn of Holland does, was the first to show up with his new passport which revealed that he had been tested 19 times in three years, which would be a big yawn except . . .

Conscious of the fact that urine testing for steroids is a quaint and amusing ritual still carried out for reasons of superstition, Thorpe spoke about his eagerness to be the first Australian to take a blood test to prove his innocence; in fact, Thorpe volunteered to give a blood sample before the Olympics, a sample which can be frozen until a validated test becomes available. The results would then be made public via his drugs passport.

"I'm happy to do the blood test now, if I'm guaranteed that the testing procedure is effective in proving EPO, HgH and everything else. I hope someone will give me the honour of being the first Australian, the first Olympian, the first athlete in the world, to do a blood test and to be able to prove my innocence in all different accounts." At last. You hear words like that and, presuming they are followed by the promised action, they erase a lot of the doubt. You throw an accusation at Ian Thorpe and he has something quite convincing to come back at you with. He has gone the extra yard to prove his innocence. Who else will do the same?

There is an example here which must be followed, and a country like our own is in the perfect position to do just that. We will send a small, huddled team to Sydney in September and, being honest, with one or two exceptions they have no better chance of medals then the first boat of convicts to arrive there had.

Even so, they represent us, the Amish country of sport, so why not equip them with virtually unimpeachable credentials? Why not the Irish True Champion Passport? The Spring Water Visa? The Clean as a Whistle Certificate?

We have talked a good game for the past while in Ireland, what with staging drug conferences and establishing drug agencies. Now is the time to bolt for the high ground. Why not ask every Irish Olympian to do as Thorpe is doing and give a little blood sample for freezing, the results to be released amidst great fanfare and national rejoicing when a test is legally validated? We could announce that the whole bunch of them had put their blood samples in the fridge and anyone who wants to throw mud needn't think that they have another Flipper case on their hands.

Pretty soon we will have the technology to know the facts. Let's take the blood now, let's go to the Olympics without the pathetic "everyone is doing it so why shouldn't we" excuse in our back pockets. Let's put integrity back into the business. Olympic federations and the new world anti-doping agency must move towards a system of sports-oriented health care which provides not just mandatory random tests and conspicuous schemes to illustrate the results, but which encompasses finance, care, insurance, and counselling for sports injuries, sports nutrition, training, training camps etc. The weight of influence and benefit has to be with those who work within the system, those who aren't just clean, but who are conspicuously and demonstrably clean.

Meanwhile we have the solace that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. We can take that step. Then we can start asking others to do the same.

Pat Hickey, John Treacy, Jim McDaid? Any ideas? Marion, CJ, Michael, Moh-Reece, y'all? Can you dig it?