Matthew Pinsent

It looks as though international athletics could be on the edge of a major drugs scandal. The British Olympic hopeful, Dwain Chambers, tested positive for a previously undetectable steroid, THG, after the authorities devised a new test.

Many other samples given by top athletes have been re-examined, and more are thought to have been positive.

With the world's top sports men and women training hard for next year's Athens Olympics, the US Anti-Doping Agency say they fear "an international doping conspiracy."

For a sense of the athletes' perspective on all this Gavin Esler talked to the British Olympic Rower Matthew Pinsent who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee. He began by suggesting to him that the Dwain Chambers result was a huge blow to British athletics.

MATTHEW PINSENT:
I think it is. Of course, it's unfortunate when you have a positive test and no- one is going to be happy about it. We can only hope there are very few people who are going to test positive for this and really look to the future and say it is a good thing that the test has come online. It is a good thing they've done in the States, going round testing people without really telling them what they're testing for. I think that is a new weapon in the fight against drugs. That can be a good thing. If we're trying to take positives out of the current situation, that's the one thing I'm pleased about.

GAVIN ESLER:
Do you think a lot of British people think this kind of thing happens in America or Eastern Europe or China but it couldn't possibly happen here in Britain?

MATTHEW PINSENT:
I think that is a problem. I think we always tend to think it is never our lads who are going to be cheating and it is always those Eastern Europeans or someone else. Unfortunately we have cheats just like everyone else does. We have to be prepared to fight the battle with our own competitors just as much as we expect other countries to do the same. We should lean our weight into the fight against it as much as any other country.

GAVIN ESLER:
It sounds defeatist to say it, but do you think the cheats will always be one step ahead of the authorities?

MATTHEW PINSENT:
I think that's true. I think the cheats are always going to be slightly ahead but the principle that's coming in now is it could be retro- active testing as well, so that a sample you give now may be tested in eight months or a year. So you're now asking the cheats to beat not only the test they've got at the moment but also any developments that happen in the next year or two. That is a challenge that I think is such a powerful weapon against the people who are cheating. That is something we should push forward with.

GAVIN ESLER:
We're less than a year away from the Olympics. Do you think this casts a shadow over the Athens games?

MATTHEW PINSENT:
I think unfortunately positive tests and the Olympics have a long history. You've got to put into perspective that of the thousands of tests taken every year there is only a tiny percentage that turn out positive and of course they grab the headlines. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't overshadow the Olympics and hope the weapons of the testers are strong and competent and stand up in court because I'm sure that is where this is going to go, and it will in the future as well, and keep our fingers crossed. I'm as much a fan as I am an active sportsman. I want to watch the TV and watch my competitors with a degree of confidence about what's going on. I still do, I might be naive but I still do. I still look around the Olympics and think everyone is there for the right reasons and are doing so on a sporting and a clean basis.

GAVIN ESLER:
The Norwegian Olympic Federation says they believe all the records are somewhat doubtful and perhaps the slate should be wiped clean and we start again. Do you agree?

MATTHEW PINSENT:
That is a real can of worms. We know about some of the systematic abuses of drugs that have happened in the past. There have been question marks over Olympic champions in the past and you don't need to go back very far. Carl Lewis was recently implicated. It is hard to go back more than two years and start changing the medals. Are you really going back to an Olympics ten years ago to say, "You weren't the gold medallist," and have a swap round? I think there's got to be a cut-off and I'm not going to decide that but I think maybe five years is enough and let's hope we don't have to go back. But I think it is such a can of worms it's not worth it.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.