Once again, in the next couple of weeks the testing procedures used by major sporting bodies to keep their sport clean will come under the microscope.

In the evolutionary history of drug testing, the progress has been slow and the science of detection has constantly been mired in the politics of expediency.

Testing was originally done using saliva. And horses. Despite a long history of cheating in one form or another, what human athletes were doing to their own bodies never troubled the world at large until the 1950s.

In 1959, the International Sports Medicine Congress in Paris focussed on the issue, following a series of less formal gatherings among scientists over the preceding years.

A year later, sport saw what Professor Manfred Donike described as the birth of modern drug testing.

"Starting in 1960, the modern techniques of analytical chemistry, especially chromotography, provided the possibility to detect more and more dope agents or their metabolites in biological fluids, preferentially in urine."

The death of Prof Donike in August 1995 deprived the sporting community of its most effective scientist and policeman. It was Donike who unmasked 19 athletes at the 1983 Pan American games in what was a huge breakthrough for the science of detection. Five years later, he was at the centre of the Ben Johnson episode in Seoul.

Johnson maintained that he had been set up.

"How can anyone seriously state such nonsense?" asked Donike, effectively ending the debate as to whether the sports bodies had entered into a convoluted conspiracy to destroy the reputation of a popular champion.

Donike left behind an anti-doping establishment which has gradually closed some of the gap between themselves and the cheats. All the while, however, the unique overlapping of the issues of science proof and legal proof, as well as the not always helpful influences of commerce and politics, has hindered progress.

The International Olympic Committee now has a network of accredited laboratories throughout the world. The bulk are fully accredited labs, while others are classified as Phase I or Phase II labs, which are restricted in their screening procedures. The laboratories work under a strict code of ethics which prohibits them from accepting samples from athletes on an individual basis, for the purposes of screening or identification, or from commercial sources.

All doping control officers are trained and accredited by the IOC.