BEING a bit of a divil for the old topicality, I called around to the folk at Olympic doping control on foot and on phone for the past couple of days and there can't be a more bedraggled, more woebegone bunch anywhere at the chaos Olympics.

At least the hapless drivers who staff up the transport system have the pleasure of getting somewhere eventually and the numerates who make up the results system team get it right eventually.

The men and women who spend their days delving into the chemical properties in the nectar of the Olympic gods generally know that they are wasting their time. Anyone who gets caught has to be operating on a 20 watt brain and, even then - if the rumour mill has it right - they might not be exposed.

The doping control folk entertain speculation or enter easily into harmless banter with journalists and yet as a group they wouldn't mind having to hold a press conference at some time during these Games. For the Olympic pharmacists, no news isn't good news, just confirmation that they are at least half a decade behind the latest generation of sports cheats.

"Hello pharmacy," says the sing song voice of the woman answering the first call of the day. "Oops, sorry, that's my other job. Control centre, can I help you?"

"Any positives?"

"Oooh. None today. None so far. Everyone will know as soon as we find one. There is no need for you to call us. You'll know."

She's probably right. The chances of doping control catching a cheater through urine samples are about as great as a fisherman hauling a fox onboard his trawler.

Before the Games began there was much ballyhoo about the latest gadget given to the drugs police. Here in Atlanta they have a high resolution mass spectrometer. The high resolution mass spectrometer, according to the instructions, can detect drug misuse from up to 18 months before the Games. It is ten times more sensitive than the old equipment.

Well, the baddies have just been quaking in their sponsored boots. No blood testing yet? Well awl-riiiight! Way to go IOC! Let the Games begin, Baby!

The single most memorable and possibly the single most poignant thing about Ben Johnson eight years ago in Seoul was not the pressure which forced him to cheat but his inability to do it properly.

A survey some years back revealed that 75 per cent of Olympic athletes would take a drug which guaranteed victory even if it meant dying within a year of the event. What the number is for a drug which won't kill you within a year of the event, we can only guess.

Furthermore, before we get dizzy up here on the high moral ground, I have to say that I would take performance enhancing drugs for my writing if they were available. The athlete is less culpable than the society which provides the rewards and the pressures and the sports bodies who turn the blind eye.

Down at the doping control centre they may share that view. They aren't at liberty to comment. All agree that it would be a good thing if there were a wave of high profile apprehensions at these Games. All agree to that it is unlikely to happen.

"Looking in urine," said the woman pharmacist who didn't want to be named because she might want to do this gig again, "I guess you could say we are looking in the wrong place."

Indeed. The drugs of choice at these Games are peptide hormones, clever little buggers which come in handy for the production of the extra red blood cells which carry extra oxygen and reduce fatigue and make you an all round better medal prospect.

Training for the Games you might start by bulking yourself up a bit with orally administered and well masked steroids and getting down to your hard work. Later on you will seek out some Chorionic gonadotrophin (Human Growth Compound) or some Human Growth Hormones, some erythropoietin (EPO). Both are available either by prescription or through the black market.

EPO is the most effective chemical abuse of the mid-90s, increasing effectiveness by a margin of up to eight per cent and hard to detect (impossible to detect in urine). EPO is the equivalent of training hard at altitude without enduring any of the attendant risks or hardships.

The actual human growth hormone is a polypeptide hormone composed of 191 different amino acids. A bacterium in the gut can be reprogrammed to manufacture undetectable HGH synthetically.

Ideal for the development of big muscles, HGH stimulates the breakdown of fat for use as energy, sparing protein and thus stimulating the synthesis of collagen which strengthens the cartilage, bones, tendons and ligaments.

Under the right sort of supervision, still available for freelance work since the break up of the East European bloc, your drug intake can be monitored and you need never fear getting a call from the nice woman at doping control.

For scribblers, by the way, there is nothing available but plagiarism, another case of science lagging behind woefully.