Sydney: An unprecedented thorough drug testing programme will ensure Melbourne's 'Friendly Games' are off-limits to drug cheats, officials have warned on the eve of the 18th Commonwealth Games.
A record 4,500 athletes from 71 nations will make it the biggest Commonwealth Games yet staged and the crackdown on enhancing drugs will match it in scope.
When the Games get underway on March 16 every competing Australian athlete will have been tested by the Australian Sports Drugs Agency (ASDA) while a record number of urine and blood tests will be conducted throughout the 12 days of competition.
"This is the most comprehensive programme we have ever had in place," Commonwealth Games Federation chief executive Mike Hooper said this week.
"It will be the largest number of tests ever undertaken. There will be blood testing as well as normal urine. The first time we really did it was in Manchester but the programme in relation to blood doping and testing is enhanced since then. It is significantly more testing and a much larger programme than what we had in Manchester in 2002. Our message to any athlete foolish enough to attempt to go down that path and run the risk is -- you will get caught," Hooper said.
At Manchester four athletes were caught for performance enhancing drugs.
The Games have suffered a major blow with the loss of Australia's talismanic swimmer Ian Thorpe with a viral infection, robbing the colonial relic event of a genuine world sporting star, but sports-mad Australians have expectations of winning 90 of the 441 gold medals on offer.
The gold medals have been made from 125 grams of gold worth close to $3,000 under current gold prices and donated by the Victorian goldrush town of Ballarat.
All medals feature a heraldic and iconic emblem of the Commonwealth Games Federation embossed on the front with an emblem of Melbourne and the words humanity, equality and destiny on the back.
The sporting powers of the British Commonwealth -- Australia, England and Canada -- will again dominate the medals with New Zealand, South Africa, India, Scotland and Kenya expected to figure prominently on the medals tally.
Yet the Commonwealth Family embraces its tiny member states as well with diverse nations such as Gambia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Cayman Islands, St Kitts & Nevis, Maldives, Brunei, Vanuatu, Niue, Kiribati and Falkland Islands coming to the big party.
A VIP list of Queen Elizabeth II, Nelson Mandela and British Prime Minister Tony Blair head a list of 400 world leaders, celebrities, business chiefs and sporting greats invited to attend.
The Games will be seen by an estimated global audience of up to 1.5 billion people each day, including the prime American market for the first time.
The Australian government will devote $65 million to security.
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