A Swedish anti-doping organisation has lost its director, former athlete Sven Nylander, after Nylander was picked up by the police for sniffing cocaine. A serious problem for the organisation Ren Idrott - Clean Sport - whose main working method is to make examples of top athletes who say no to doping.

Knowledge bank: excerpt from article by John Hoberman on race and athletics

Knowledge bank: If you have sweet dreams about Olympic medals the best advice is to be very selective choosing your parents! Research suggests that genes account for up to 50 per cent of the variance in athletic performance.

Australian scientist Robin Parisotto developed a groundbreaking EPO test in the run-up to the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Now he has begun work on a test that can discover if athletes have used genetic doping to augment their body’s production of EPO. In this excerpt from his recent book, Blood Sports, Parisotto describes what the world of sport may look like if genetic doping is allowed to go ahead.

Knowledge bank: On the opening day of Play the Game 2005, Kelli White, former World Champion in sprint, took the stand to explain why she had decided to use drugs to enhance her performance.

Knowledge bank: A critical evaluation of WADA’s prohibited list was given at the Play the Game 2005 conference by Thomads Søbirk Petersen.

Knowledge bank: Have the attitudes to and the use of performance enhancing drugs amongst professional cyclists changed since 1998?

The U.S. Balco affair consisted of a systematic and calculated method to circomvent sports drug testing rules by using sophisticated and oftentimes undetecable performance enhancing substances.